QUICK OVERVIEW

• U.S. economic expansion eased to 2.2% in Q1
• U.S. consumer sentiment levels off; it only rose to 76.4 from 76.2 in March
• U.S. first time claims for unemployment benefits decreased 1,000 to 388,000. 24.4 % of

• Spanish workforce are unemployed BOJ announces additional 62 bln USD monetary easing program

• The growth of China's inflation rate is expected to ease to 3.3%in April from the previous month with the slowing of food price rises, according to a report released by the Bank of Communications.

• EQIX revenues rose 25% YoY.

• UN (Unilever) announced sales growth of 8.4% with emerging markets up 11.9% and developed markets up 4.2%.

• BAYRY (Bayer) Earnings rose 14% to EUR1.59 billion

• HGSI’s loss narrowed to $93.5 million (loss of 47 cents per diluted share) from $131 million (loss of 69 cents per share) YoY. Revenue rose 77.4% to $47.1 million from the year-earlier quarter.

• (NYT) Upward mobile consumers from much poorer countries are about to surpass Americans in their share of the world economy. Living standards in the developing world are improving so quickly that those countries are now beginning to drive global economic growth.

• The National Association of Realtors reports that pending home sales increased 4.1% in March to a new 23-month high.

• Starbucks announced that for the quarter ended April 1, profit was $309.9 million, or 40 cents a share, up from $261.6 million or 34 cents a share in the same 2011 period. Revenue climbed 15% to $3.2 billion.

• Titanic director James Cameron is backing a company with Google billionaires Larry Page and Eric Schmidt to mine asteroids in space, called Planetary Resources.