• European indices set for slightly higher opening
• US retail sales report for March in the spotlight
• JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup to report Q1 earnings today

Futures markets point to a slightly higher opening of the European cash session today. This comes after an upbeat Wall Street session yesterday which saw major US stock market indices rally over 1%. Upbeat moods extended into the Asian trading hours and the majority of indices from the Asia-Pacific region also traded higher, although the scale of gains was smaller than on Wall Street.

An interesting week on the markets is drawing to a close but some action may also happen today. US retail sales report for March will be another piece of US data that may affect market pricing for next FOMC meeting and is likely to trigger at least a short-term volatility jump on USD market. While indices may also see some move on retail sales data releases, equities may be more prone to react to release of earnings reports from Wall Street banks today – Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan.

8:00 am BST – Spain, CPI inflation for March. Expected: 3.3% YoY. Previous: 6.0% YoY

9:00 am BST – Poland, CPI inflation for March (final). Flash release: 16.2% YoY

1:30 pm BST – US, retail sales for March.

• Headline. Expected: -0.4% MoM. Previous: -0.4% MoM
• Ex-auto. Expected: -0.3% MoM. Previous: -0.1% MoM

1:30 pm BST – Canada, manufacturing sales for February. Expected: -2.4% MoM. Previous: +4.1% MoM

2:15 pm BST – US, industrial production for March. Expected: 0.2% MoM. Previous: 0.0% MoM

3:00 pm BST – US, business inventories for February. Expected: 0.2% MoM. Previous: -0.1% MoM

3:00 pm BST – US, University of Michigan consumer sentiment for April. Expected: 62.2. Previous: 62.0

Central bankers’ speeches

• 11:00 am BST – ECB President Lagarde
• 1:45 pm BST – Fed Waller
• 4:30 pm BST – BoE Tenreyro
• 7:15 pm BST – ECB Nagel

Wall Street earnings releases

• Citigroup (C.US) – before market open
• BlackRock (BLK.US) – before market open
• JPMorgan (JPM.US) – before market open
• Wells Fargo (WFC.US) – before market open