NEWS / Foreign Exchange

Indices near unchanged during the first trading session of the quarter

- Ahead of the open equity futures were ticking higher on more buyout news and hopes Iran and the UK can negotiate an end to the sailor hostage saga.  First Data is being taken private by KKR at $34/share while Tribune accepted Zell??™s LBO offer.  Shares off BBW +3% are moving higher on take-out speculation as well.  Financial stocks are weighing on the indices after MTB ??“8% lowered guidance citing weakness in sub-prime business while New Century confirmed it is filing for Chapter 11.  FMD is down 2.5% after Barron??™s was cautious on the student loan business.  The March ISM manufacturing reading was reported basically inline with expectations but the prices paid component rose substantially above expectations.  Equity futures dipped to session lows following the number but Treasury markets hardly budged.  The yield on the 10-year stands at 4.636% with prices hugging unchanged.  Cable is up 105 pips to 1.9780.  Pound strength comes after the BofE's shadow committee voted 8-1 in favor of a rate increase at this weeks meeting following recently robust data out of the UK.  The Dollar is down fractionally against the Yen after the release of the Tankan survey overnight.  May Crude is in the middle of today??™s range down $0.40 at $65.50 while natural gas has rolled over to session lows down 2% at $7.57.