MarketWatch | 13/08/2014 | US Retail sales data to watch it closely

Asian markets have had a broadly positive session with traders clearly happy to focus on the positive aspects of the data we’ve seen coming out of China overnight. Housing sales have dipped by around 10% over the first half of the year – but there’s a belief that a recovery will be forthcoming in the final quarter. It’s a similar story for the Nikkei where news that the Japanese economy had contracted in the last quarter was shrugged off after a disappointing start and another run of Yen weakness is again going to help lend support to stocks.

This is all pointing towards an upbeat start to the session on Wall Street despite the fact that the geopolitical situation remains tense and there’s still the prospect of a dangerous stand-off at the Ukrainian border when the aid convoy arrives from Moscow. US retail sales data is due for release ahead of the open so this could provide some real direction in the near term and arguably see sentiment turned on its head if there’s disappointment, but for now we’re calling the DOW up 56 at 16617 and the S&P up 8 at 1942.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-futures-up-ahead-of-retail-sales-data-2014-08-13?siteid=rss