Rebound in Germany's Retail Sales and Arab Resolution Plan Buoys Equities

In a rather bizarre story, Venezuala's Hugo Chavez has made an offer to the Arab League “to intervene in Libya's conflict” by …”sending mediators.” Hunh? Like that is going to work. Violence has cut Libyan oil output by almost 1m barrels a day says the IEA. Oil Declines Most in a Week on Arab League's Libya Crisis Resolution Plan. Crude oil prices are down more than 1% as a result. Germany's retail sales came in higher than expected overnight. And this morning U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Fall to 368,000, Lowest Since 2008 All these factors contributed to the SP500 climbing more than 14 points to 1321 before the market open. That may not leave that much upside for the SP500 when the pit session opens. At 9 am CT, ISM services will be reported. The report is certainly going to confirm the baseline story that the US economy is in recovery. The devil will be in the details. Even if the details from that report do not show signs of weakening, a lot of today's upside potential has been priced into the market. The SP500 has already reached its initial resistance at 1320-1322. 1325-1327 is the second tier of resistance. The good news is that there may not be much downside to the SP500 ahead of positive expectations for Friday's NFP report. Downside is probably limited to 1313-1314. The second tier of support is 1308-1310. Crude oil prices would probably have to rally back $2 to $103 to see 1308-1310 in the SP500.