US Stock Futures Surge Ahead Of Beige Book, Bank of America Earnings

Pre-open movers US stock futures jumped in early pre-market trading, ahead of earnings from Bank of America BAC and Google GOOGL. The Housing starts report for March will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET, while industrial production data for March will be released at 9:15 a.m. ET. The Federal Reserve will release its latest Beige Book report at 2:00 p.m. ET. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 69 points to 16,274.00, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 8.30 points to 1,847.90. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index gained 18.50 points to 3,509.75. A Peek Into Global Markets European markets were higher today, with the Spanish Ibex Index surging 1.11%, London's FTSE 100 index gaining 0.33% and STOXX Europe 600 Index jumping 0.74%. German DAX 30 index climbed 0.79% and French CAC 40 Index rose 0.85%. Italy's trade surplus widened to EUR2.6 billion ($3.59 billion) in February, from EUR1.0 billion in the year-ago month. UK's unemployment declined to 6.9% in the three months to February. The European Union's consumer prices rose 0.9% in March from February. Asian markets ended mostly higher today. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average surged 3.01%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.11%, China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.17% and India's BSE Index dropped 0.92%. Broker Recommendation Analysts at Imperial Capital upgraded Goodrich Petroleum GDP from “in-line” to “outperform.” The target price for Goodrich Petroleum has been raised from $13 to $33. Goodrich Petroleum's shares closed at $24.34 yesterday. Breaking news

• Huntington Bancshares Incorporated announced that the board of directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend on its 8.50% Series A Non-Cumulative Perpetual Convertible Preferred Stock HBANP of $21.25 per share. To read the full news, click here.
• TriVascular Technologies TRIV today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 6,500,000 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $12.00 per share. To read the full news, click here.
• Credit Suisse Group AG CS reported a drop in first-quarter profit. To read the full news, click here.
• Dr Reddy's Laboratories RDY announced today that it has launched Eszopiclone Tablets (C-IV) 1 mg, 2 mg and 3 mg, a therapeutic equivalent generic version of LUNESTA® (eszopiclone) tablets C-IV in the US market on April 15, 2014, following the approval by the United States Food & Drug Administration (USFDA). To read the full news, click here.