The US Stock market closed yesterday with its best gain in a month and sent the S&P 500 and Dow to fresh new record highs.  This morning markets have opened

Retail sales slowed sharply in April after Americans appear to have slowed spending down sharply after splurging in March.  Retail sales last month were unchanged from a year ago.  Wall St watches the retail sales numbers closely because consumer spending makes up so much of the economic activity in this country.(marketwatch.com)

The US government recorded a $107 Billion budget surplus in April contributing to a steady decline in the deficit in 2014.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates the deficit in 2014 will be $492 Billion which is the smallest the deficit has been since before Bush was President.(Yahoo Finance)

AT&T is in active talks to buy satellite TV provider DirecTV for close to $50 Billion.  An offer for DirecTV of $95/share would value the company at $48 Billion.  Shares of DirecTV rose 6% on that news to $90/share.(WSJ)

And Nike announced that they are going to go forward with a quarterly dividend of $.24 per share.  The move will return $214 million to shareholders and $32 million to founder Phil Knight.  The dividend increase is an effort by the company to return cash to shareholders.  Nike has a strong balance sheet with $5 Billion in cash and almost no debt.  Shares of Nike trade at $74/share.(Portland business journal)