This morning, the S&P 500 Index e-mini futures (ES-U2) was trading higher by 5.50 points to 1353.00 per contract. The small pop higher in the futures market occurs after Spain held a successful €3.56 billion bond auction. We can only wonder, who is really buying the Spanish debt? At the moment, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's two-day Humphrey Hawkins testimony is underway. So watch this space to see if he hints at another quantitative easing program. As you know, the stock market institutions that move markets love artificial inflation.
All of the European markets are holding up today. The Spanish IBEX 35 is leading the European stock indexes, the IBEX 35 is trading higher by 1.02%. Some leading equities that will likely be volatile today include Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR) (NYSE: SAN), Bank of Ireland (ADR) (NYSE: IRE), National Bank of Greece (ADR) (NYSE:NBG) and Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE: DB). Traders should remember that this Friday is options expiration, which tells us thatmarkets are likely to be volatile through the end of the week.
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