Courtesy of NASA

Successful bond auctions for Italy and Spain boost confidence

On Wednesday, the Italian stock market rallied after a successful auction of €11 billion in one-year debt.  The yield on Italy’s ten year bonds fell 0.15% to 5.54% (NYSEARCA:EWI).

Markit reported that Spanish manufacturing output for February declined by 4.5 percent on a year-over-year basis.  Nevertheless, after a successful bond auction, Spanish bond yield fell 0.09% to 5.89%.

Germany’s auction of ten-year notes failed to attract enough bids.  As a result, the 10-year bund fell, as the yield rose by 0.06% to 1.79%.  German carmakers Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler AG each made significant gains exceeding 2% in Wednesday’s trading (NYSEARCA:EWG).

In Britain, March retail sales for stores open for at least one year improved by 1.3 percent on a year-over year basis.

In Japan, machinery orders climbed 4.8 percent, despite expectations for a decline of 0.8 percent.  Nevertheless, Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined by 0.83% to 9,458 despite weakening of the yen in anticipation of monetary stimulus efforts by the Bank of Japan.  (NYSEARCA:EWJ).

China’s Shanghai Composite Index advanced by 0.13% to 2,308.

As of 8:20 EDT, the Euro STOXX 50 Index jumped by 1.25% to 2,350 (NYSEARCA:VGK).  The FTSE 100 advanced by 0.70% to 5,634 (NYSEARCA:EWU).  The German DAX Index gained 1.25% to 6,689.

The euro rose against dollar by 0.38% trading at $1.3132 (NYSEARCA:FXE).

American futures trading saw the June 12 Dow Jones Industrials future rise by 0.63% to 12,760 as of 8:30 EDT.  The June 12 S&P 500 future was up 0.74% to 1,367 NYSEARCA:SPY).  The June 12 Nasdaq 100 future advanced by0.68% to 2,715.

May futures for Brent Crude Oil increased by 4 cents to $119.92/bbl.

June gold futures declined by 60 cents to $1,660.

Bottom line: Bullishness in the European markets, should boost American stock indices to return to positive territory on Wednesday morning.

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Disclaimer: Wall Street Sector Selector trades a wide variety of ETFs and positions can change at any time.

About John Nyaradi (http://www.wallstreetsectorselector.com) John Nyaradi is Publisher of Wall Street Sector Selector: Your Home For ETF Investing! John writes a weekly guest column, John Nyaradi’s ETF Edge for MarketWatch.com and his investment articles have appeared in many online publications including Trading Markets, Money Show, Yahoo Finance, Investors Insight, Fidelity, ETF Daily News, iStock Analyst , among many others. His book, Super Sectors: How to Outsmart the Market Using Sector Rotation and ETFs, is published by John Wiley and Sons and included among the Years Top Investment Books in the 2011 Stock Trader’s Almanac.