daytrades march 18 pre-market

Morning traders.

Market wrap: A strong night for commodity prices, combined with the Dow's longest winning streak since August, point to further gains for local stocks this morning.

Futures traders expect our market to build on yesterday's sharp rise. The March SPI futures contract closed 18 points stronger at 4872 after the Dow Jones Industrial Average improved for the seventh straight session and joined other U.S. equity indexes at fresh 17-month highs.

U.S. investors continued to cheer the Federal Reserve's pledge to hold interest rates at record low levels, guaranteeing cheap borrowing for some time to come. The Dow tacked on 48 points or 0.45%, the S&P 500 added 0.58% and the Nasdaq 0.47%.

"There's no question the Fed being easy continues to feed this. Easy money is creating massive misallocations everywhere, and that party can continue. As long as you have Ben the bartender manning the tap, anything is possible," Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak told MarketWatch.

The Labor Department's Producer Price Index fell 0.6% last month, the largest drop in seven months, confirming that the Fed does not have to worry about inflationary pressures at present.

"The news on inflation is positive as it adds up to the Fed yesterday reiterating that it's going to keep rates low for an extended period of time," James Dunigan, chief investment officer at PNC Wealth Management told Bloomberg. "The recovery is in place and by all evidence looks to be sustainable and at the end of the rainbow, that all filters down to corporate profits."

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major currencies, fell to a six-week low after the Federal Reserve this week quashed hopes that interest rate rises are on the horizon. The dollar index was recently trading 0.1% lower.

Crude oil hit a two-month high as buyers welcomed OPEC's decision to leave production quota unchanged. Crude oil for April delivery was recently up $1 or 1.2% at $82.67 a barrel.

Base metals continued to benefit from falling inventories, a weakening greenback and hopes for a revaluation of the Chinese yuan. In London, copper rallied 1.9%, aluminium hit a two-month high, up 1.6%, lead +2%, nickel +3.7%, tin +1.3% and zinc +1.9%.

"The general belief now is we are emerging from recession and that there are brighter days ahead. I think that's the general theme in commodities right now, and copper is a prime benefactor of that," a U.S. futures analyst told Reuters.

Gold gave back a little of this week's sharp gains. The spot price was recently trading at $1,119.50 an ounce, down $7.20 or around 0.6% on the price at lunchtime here yesterday.

An index of European shares hit a new high for the year on strength in miners and banks. The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.9%. Britain's FTSE climbed 0.4%, Germany's DAX 0.9% and France's CAC 0.5%.

TRADING THEMES TODAY

INDUSTRIAL METALS: A particularly strong night for copper, aluminium and nickel. All three are pressuring their old resistance levels. Breakouts from here have very healthy implications for the share prices of local miners. As I suggested yesterday, the U.S. dollar is on the slide and that means more attractive pricing in dollar-priced commodities for foreign buyers. Current trends favour buying select resource shares.

ECONOMIC NEWS: Nothing major scheduled locally. Tonight in the U.S. brings several potential market-movers in the consumer price index, unemployment claims and a regional manufacturing index. Also scheduled: the Conference Board's leading index, natural gas storage and the current account.

Good luck to all.