Morning Brief

Earnings season is off to an uneven start, with Dow component Alcoa (AA) merely matching earnings estimates and revenue missing analyst forecasts for the first time since 2007. That could put somewhat of a dampener on stock market sentiment, even though the Dow managed its first close over 11,000 since September of 2008.
Investors are also watching developments out of Greece, where the financially strapped country was able to complete an auction of $1.63 billion in 52 and 26-week treasury bills. As might be expected, yields were high: 4.85% for the 52-week bills, 4.55% for the 26-week bills, compared to 2.20% and 1.38% in the most recent auction of those securities.
What might arguably the most popular non-public company on Wall Street is taking a major step today: Twitter will start rolling out advertising today, according to multiple reports. It's considered a significant step to making the service profitable, an obviously important step toward an eventual public offering.
On today's economic calendar: the National Federation of Independent Business releases its monthly index of small business sentiment at 7:30am ET. The government is out with the February trade deficit and March import/export prices at 8:30am ET.
Three Fed speakers are on today's agenda, although two of them will speak after the markets have closed for the day. Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo speaks in Washington at 10:45am ET, while Chairman Ben Bernanke and Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker have speaking engagements at 7pm ET and 7:15pm ET respectively.
Nokia (NOK) could be a stock to watch, as it unveils three new cheaper phone models with full keyboards and messaging capability, hoping to challenge the dominance of RIM's Blackberry.
The most significant earnings reports of the day come after the closing bell, when Dow component Intel (INTC) reports its quarterly numbers, along with Dow Transportation Index stock CSX (CSX).