Market overview: US Treasury yields move lower after IMF downgrade

LONDON (ShareCast) - 1431: US 10-year Treasury yields are down by seven basis points to 1.87% following the IMF downgrade.

1330: US retail sales volumes grew by 0.9% month-on-month in March, following a 0.5% drop the month before (consensus: 1.1%). Excluding automobiles sales also came in lower than forecast, rising by 0.4% (consensus: 0.7%) after a 0.1% decline in the previous month.

1330: US producer prices advanced at a 0.2% month-on-month clip in March, as forecast.

1211: US heavyweight JP Morgan is reporting quarterly earnings per share of $1.45 versus analysts' estimates of $1.40. In adjusted terms the lender's EPS came in at $1.61 instead of the $1.41 expected. Ahead of the release Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS - news) wrote how in the first quarter it expects to see European investment banks' revenues down by 7% year-on-year in comparison to a flat reading for their US peers. For that reason and "in the context of the recent relative strength in the broader European banks sector" the Swiss broker adds that: "our order of preference is UBS (NYSEArca: FBGX - news) , Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) , Deutsche Bank (Xetra: 514000 - news) , RBS (LSE: RBS.L - news) and HSBC." 1145: Peter Hargreaves, co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown (LSE: HL.L - news) , will be stepping down.

1112: Conservative manifesto includes a promise for 200,000 extra homes for first-time buyers.

1000: Eurozone industrial production grew by 1.1% month-on-month (consensus: 0.4%) in February, following a slightly downwardly revised fall of 0.3% in the prior month.

0930: UK consumer prices held at zero in March as expected, the Office for National Statistic has revealed, amid a supermarket price war and a slump in oil prices.

0906: Stocks have started the morning slightly higher, led by a bounce in the shares of the main miners, alongside gains in BarclayUs. BP has been taken down a notch by analysts at Citi, to a "neutral" recommendation from "buy". UK CPI data is due out at 09:30. Retail spending jumped 4.7% in March, its fastest pace in 11 months, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). FTSE 100 up 17 points to 7,081.60.