Morning Briefing
Ho, hum–another day, another all time high driven by FOMO
Today, Monday November 4, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its first new all-time high since July. The Standard & Poor's 500 and the NASDAQ Composite also saw new highs. Stocks gave up some of their gains into the close but the Dow still finished up 0.39% for...
On GDP growth there’s good news and bad news and more bad news
The U.S. economy grew at a 1.9% annualized rate in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported this morning. The good news: The 1.9% growth in GDP was above the 1.6% rate forecast by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The bad news: That 1.9% growth rate was...
Oil earnings expected to disappoint starting with BP tomorrow and then continuing with ExxonMobil and Chevron on Friday
The oil supermajors--ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX),Royal Dutch Shell (RDS), Total (TOT) and BP (BP)--are expected to show a 42% year over year average plummet in third quarter earnings when they report earnings this week. That's an even bigger slump than the 18%...
Consumers look to be holding up but I wouldn’t call them super-positive
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Microsoft’s earnings beat last night sets up Amazon and Apple earnings to come
Last night, October 23, after the market close, Â Microsoft (MSFT) reported earnings and revenue beats for its fiscal first quarter. Revenue climbed 14% year over year, beating Wall Street forecasts by $860 million. Earnings of $1.38 a share exceeded Wall Street...
A tale of two tech markets as Texas Instruments and Apple move in opposite directions.
Shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) closed down 7.48% today after the company reported that third-quarter earning felt $1.49 a share from $1.58 a share in the third quarter of 2018. Revenue dropped 11% year over year. On the other hand, shares of Apple continued to move...
Enthusiasm for this quarter’s earnings; worry about guidance for 2020
Today the Standard & Poor's 500 matched a 12-week high and made yet another assault on a new all-time record. Better than expected earnings have been the market driver. Some 81% of the S&P 500 companies that have reported for the quarter so far have beat...
China’s economy continues to slow–manageably so far
In the third quarter GDP in China grew by 6%. That's the slowest pace since the early 1990s and below the forecast of 6.1% growth from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. From the reaction--or maybe more precisely "non-reaction"--by the government and the central bank...
Today the market is in “Give back some of those gains” mode on a disappointing retail sales report
It would be an overstatement, in my opinion, to say the market is trendless. I think there's a definite and but unspectacular bias to the upside in the short-term--four weeks, say. It would be accurate, however, to say, there's not much conviction to that trend. So...
Odd day: stocks rise on bank earnings oil falls on global growth fears
Good earnings news from big U.S. banks drove U.S. stocks higher today. As of 3 p.m. New York time, the Standard & Poor's 500 was up 1.10% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was ahead 1.03%. The NASDAQ Composite had climbed .28% and the Russell 2000 small cap...
So last Friday’s “agreement” on U.S.-China trade wasn’t really an agreement
China now says it wants to hold more talks this month to hammer out the details of the U.S.-China mini-deal announced by President Donald Trump on Friday before Chinese President  Xi Jinping will sign it, both Bloomberg and the Washington Post are reporting today....Jim’s Stock Alerts
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