Morning Call by Traders University

Investors dumped stocks for a second day Tuesday, prolonging a break from a huge four-week rally as the market girds itself for potentially grim earnings reports.The FTSE100 closed down 63 points yesterday closing at 3930. RBS took the biggest fall as the bank said it will be getting rid of 9,000 jobs worldwide. Barclays and Lloyds also fell heavily as the IMF said that toxic assets from the banking sector could hit up to £2.7trn. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 186 points to close at 7789. Analysts related the pullback to profit-taking after a huge advance in March that gave the Dow its best four-week performance in more than 75 years. Traders are also getting nervous ahead of reports from Aloca Inc., the giant aluminium maker that is the first of the 30 companies that make up the Dow to post quarterly results. The company has reported that it lost $497 million in its first quarter as prices fell for the lightweight metal company. Investors have worried that Alcoa’s results would set the tone for worrying results to come. In forex news, when tradng the CAD today, watch out for high news at 1:15pm on housing starts which is a leading indicator of economic health. At 7pm tonight, FOMC releases his meeting minutes which is a detialed record of the FOMC’s most recent meeting providing in-depth insights into the economic conditions that influenced their vote on where to set interest rates.