Somebody must have hit the wrong button. At one point in the pre-open, the futures were down 2 points. This can't happen. Stocks only go up, right?

Outside the U.S., better news on the global economy is keeping the rally going. China's trade surplus was better than expected, with both exports and imports stronger than expected (though accuracy of the numbers is being debated).

Rio Tinto said steel demand for China is stronger than anyone thinks. Demand for steel is expected rise at a 3 percent rate for the next decade, it said. The company expects iron ore sales to rise to a record. One major factor helping Rio: It is "well-positioned on the cost curve," according to Alan Smith, president of Rio Tinto Iron Ore Asia.

Germany joins the U.S. at an historic high. France at a two-year high. Portugal at 52-week high. Japan at five-year high.

Early in trading the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed above 15,000 to hit an all-time intraday high of 15,013.43. Caterpillar and JPMorgan led the blue-chip gainers. (Read more here)

European bank earnings continue to be fairly strong, with Societe Generale, HSBC, and Commerzbank all up. Barclays, Credit Suisse, other European banks are trading higher in the U.S.

Elsewhere:

1) Reports that Microsoft is preparing an about-face on Windows 8 is all the talk among tech traders this morning. The company appears to be admitting that updating to a touchscreen interface and burying the traditional "desktop" launch has alienated users and greatly steepened the learning curve for the new system.

Consumers and companies are in a mad dash to cut costs. With no real top-line growth, companies—and cash-strapped consumers—are showing more sensitivity to prices and not hesitating to switch when cheaper alternative are available.

Look what happened to food processor Tyson Foods this morning. In a quarter where half of the companies reported revenues below expectations, Tyson not only missed (reporting $8.42 billion in revenue vs. $8.579 billion expected), but lowered full-year revenue to $34.5 billion from $35 billion, about in line with expectations.

The miss was in beef and pork, where the company implied consumers were switching to cheaper chicken. Regardless: Tyson has been raising prices on both beef and chicken, and the consumer is showing sensitivity to those price hikes.

Well, that was a bit ... embarrassing. The whole Street had been set up for a below-consensus jobs report at 8:30 a.m. ET, and not only did it blow out on the upside, but the upward revisions were huge. S&P futures immediately jumped 10 points.

Really, though, can this be more goldilocks? The European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve have basically said that if there was any deterioration in economic news, they would continue with their policies, and perhaps even become more aggressive. So you are backstopped on weakness.

Now, you have strong results on jobs, with huge revisions.

Initial jobless claims may have hit a five-year low this morning, but there's a lot of fear about Friday's jobs report. Estimates have been coming down, and no one seems to believe there could be an upside surprise, or if there is it will be revised downward.

Bears are already saying this could be the report that finally forces the markets to take a breather. They're already scouring the markets for signs of technical breakdowns: The Dow Transports, for example, peaked in March and has seen a series of lower highs for the past six weeks. The small-cap Russell 2000 also peaked in March.

The bottom line is that the S&P 500 is up 10 percent this year. Despite all the concern about low-growth and high-profile earnings misses like Merck, earnings growth so far is about 4 percent for the S&P 500, with revenue growth about half that. I've said this before: With the Federal Reserve continue to backstop markets, investors seem to be happy with earnings growth of roughly 5 percent.

(Read More: Should Investors Fear the Fearless Market?)

One surprise from the FOMC statement is that the Federal Reserve did not directly acknowledge the slower economic growth that was evident in March and is already evident in April.

But on closer inspection, the Fed did include an extra sentence that does indirectly address this issue: "The Committee is prepared to increase or reduce the pace of its purchases to maintain appropriate policy accommodation...."

The Fed may INCREASE OR DECREASE its purchases. It's an obvious but important point...that the Fed is now doing real-time adjustments to its policies. It can ramp up, or ramp down.

Record quarterly earnings. That's right. Record. First-quarter earnings for the S&P 500 currently stand at $26.44, according to S&P Capital IQ, the highest ever for a single quarter, beating the prior record of $26.36 for the fourth quarter of 2012.

How is it possible, when it appears so many companies are missing and there is such poor top-line growth? About 70 percent of companies are beating estimates. Especially strong have been health care (72 percent beat), financials (75 percent beat), and even technology, where 70 percent have beat. Those are the three largest sectors in the S&P 500.

Companies are not just beating, they are beating on average by 5.7 percent—that is about the historical norm.

Hey, Apple finally has a hit on its hands!

That was the quip one trader made to me about Apple's bond offering, supposed to price tonight, which is already generating orders of roughly $50 billion. Not clear how much they will issue, but if we assume roughly $15 billion, the bid-to-cover would be 3.3 to 1, which is outstanding for a corporate bond.

Anything above $15 billion in issuance would rank among the largest corporate bond offerings of all time.

Earnings: A large number of misses this morning. Among industrials and materials, big misses from Cummins, Pitney Bowes, U.S. Steel, and Martin Marietta Materials. Pfizer also missed, though just by a penny, but lowered its full-year outlook.

Engine maker Cummins was a mess, a big miss on bottom line ($1.44 a share vs. $1.86 a share expected) and slightly light on top line ($3.922 billion vs. $3.966 billion). Once again, there was notable weakness in Europe, but also Brazil and China. First-quarter North America revenue was down 15 percent, international down 10 percent. Engine revenue was down 19 percent.

That said, as with many industrials, it maintained its full-year guidance. Huh? It misses by 40 cents a share and still maintains guidance? Management is insisting that first-quarter is the bottom: "While uncertainty remains in a number of markets, we expect that the first quarter will mark the low point of the year for company revenues."

(Read More: Earnings Preview—Dreamworks & IAC)

The S&P 500 has passed its former closing high of 1593.37, we'll see if it closes above that level.

Regardless: we are closing out April with what looks like another gain, the sixth month is a row for the S&P 500, (10 of last 11 months), last time that happened was in August 2009, when there was a seven-month streak (March 2009 to September 2009).

How to explain this? It still baffles and infuriates traders, considering the anemic growth we are seeing. How to explain the bizarre outperformance of stocks this quarter:

Major Asset Classes This Year

• Stocks (VTI): 11.8%
• Bonds (BND): 0.2%
• Commodities (DBC): -5.2%

We all know that central banks are backstopping the world, and there is nowhere else to put money.

But growth has been anemic...with top line on either side of flat for most large, global industrials. You can see this in the comments from the big multi-industry companies. Eaton (ETN) CEO Alexander Cutler said this morning that "2013 is a year in which our results will depend more on our execution than on global growth," In other words, cost cutting is still the primary driver of earnings growth.

Almost all the big multi-industry companies reporting Roper Industries (ROP), Ingersoll-Rand (IR), United Technologies (UTX), Rockwell Automation (ROK) and others have had the following characteristics:

1. Beat on bottom line (earnings)
   
2. Miss on top line (revenues)
3. Affirm 2013 guidance

For most companies, the big problem is Europe, where revenues have been far below expectations. Chrysler, this morning, cited a decline in international shipments year-over-year due to "continued weakness in Europe."

This has been a big problem for China as well, as exports from China to Europe have slowed dramatically. So a bottom in Europe is critical for revenue growth in the second half of the year.

The implication, of course, is that there will be a broader recovery in the second half of the year, which is one reason industrials have held up so well.

One problem that many of these companies are having, besides lack of demand growth, is that customers are waiting longer before they replace products....this is especially a problem with companies that do heating, ventilation, and air condition. For example....can the air conditioning hold out for another year? A lot of customers think it can.