Steady PCE, Higher Pending Home Sales, Help Bolster Hump Day Trading

Economic Indicators - March Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) showed a month-over-month change of 0.0%, which was -30 basis points below the previous month, while year-over-year PCE reached +2.3%, slightly above expectations but down 40 basis points from +2.7% in February [2] - Core PCE, excluding food and energy, also reported a month-over-month change of 0.0%, down from +0.1% projected and +0.4% reported a month ago, with a year-over-year figure of +2.6%, down from +3.0% the prior month [3] Housing Market - Pending Home Sales increased by +6.1% in March, surpassing the +1% expected and the upwardly revised +2.1% for February, marking the highest level since September of the previous year [4] - The South region led the increase with +9.8%, followed by the Midwest at +4.9% and the West at +4.8%, while the Northeast experienced a decline of -0.5% [5] Company Earnings - Meta Platforms reported Q1 earnings of $6.43 per share, exceeding the expected $5.22, with revenues of $42.31 billion surpassing the $41.22 billion estimate, and Daily Active People grew +6% year over year to 3.43 billion [6] - Microsoft reported Q1 earnings of $3.46 billion, beating the $3.20 billion estimate, with revenues of $70.1 billion exceeding the projected $68.4 billion, and Azure cloud sales increased by +20% to $42.4 billion [7] - Qualcomm's fiscal Q2 earnings were $2.85 per share, beating estimates by 3 cents, with revenues of $10.83 billion surpassing the $10.67 billion consensus, although a lower revenue guide for Q3 led to a -6.3% decline in after-market shares [8]