As of 11:30 a.m. New York time this morning, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock index was down 1.15%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 1.02%. And the technology heavy NASDAQ was lower by 1.84%. Much of the talk this morning has centered on news from Facebook (FB) and Apple (AAPL) this weekend as the reason for the drop. I think that explanation is misleading
In my daily trawling through the market I come upon lots of tidbits of knowledge that I think are important to investors but that don’t justify a full post. I’ve decided to start compiling these notes here each day in a kind of running mini blog that I’m calling Notes You Need. A representative items resembles this from today: “10:20: Wall Street analysts rushed to raise their target prices for Adobe Systems (ADBE) after the company beat earnings and revenue estimates yesterday. The stock closed yesterday at $218.87 and was up 3.05% at $225.55 at the close today. BMO Capital Markets raised its target price to $260 a share from $205. Stifel took its target to $250 from $230.”
In my daily trawling through the market I come upon lots of tidbits of knowledge that I think are important to investors but that don’t justify a full post. I’ve decided to start compiling these notes here each day in a kind of running mini blog that I’m calling Notes You Need. The typical item resembles this from today: “11: 40: Bloomberg is reporting that Apple (AAPL) is planning to release three new smartphones this year as it tries to rebound from disappointing sales of the iPhone X. The new models, tentatively set for a fall introduction, include the largest iPhone even (as Apple tries to grow in the phablet market), an ungraded handset the same size as the current iPhone X, and a less expensive model with some of the key features of the iPhone X.”
So much news. And so much that has the potential to move the financial markets. Let’s start on the economic side, ok? Monday we get reports on personal income and inflation. And on the earnings side? Lots and lots of reports that could change the tone of this market. The biggest are Microsoft, (MSFT), PayPal (PYPL) and Facebook (FB) on Wednesday January 31 and then Alphabet (GOOG), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) on Thursday, February 1.
For the first time in years Alphabet (AKA Google) will have a booth at the biggest U.S. showplace for new consumer electronics, the Consumer Electronics Show that runs from January 7 through January 12 in Las Vegas. The goal this time won’t be urging early adopting consumers to try the latest Google gadget. The point this year is to get developers at other companies to join the Google Assistant camp instead of teaming up to work with Amazon’s (AMZN) Alexa or Apple’s (AAPL) Siri or voice assistants from Roku or LG or Samsung or Baidu (BIDU) or …
In my daily trawling through the market I come upon lots of tidbits of knowledge that I think are important to investors but that don’t justify a full post. I’ve decided to start compiling these notes here each day in a kind of running mini blog that I’m calling Notes You Need. Items in this miniblog include posts like this today: “CNBC discusses comments from analysts who are speculating that Apple (AAPL) might introduce video streaming service to compete with Netflix (NFLX). Apple opened lower this morning to close last week’s bullish gap along the 168.50 area.”
In my daily trawling through the market I come upon lots of tidbits of knowledge that I think are important to investors but that don’t justify a full post. I’ve decided to start compiling these notes here each day in a kind of running mini blog that I’m calling Notes You Need. Those daily posts includes itms such as this from today: “Another chair to open up at the Federal Reserve in 2018. This time it’s at the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where William Dudley will retire by mid-2018. Dudley’s term didn’t expire until 2019. The New York Fed plays a critical role in handling the Fed’s open market operations and Dudley has been one of the strongest advocates for the Fed’s policy of monetary stimulus in the years since the financial crisis. The New York Fed, rather than President Trump, will conduct the search and pick a new head to run the bank and to occupy the bank’s seat on the Fed’s governing body. I have to wonder that if, at some point, the financial markets start to worry about the huge drain in expertise at the top of the Fed with the departure of chair Janet Yellen, vice-chair Stanley Fischer, regulatory head Daniel Tarullo, and now Dudley.”
Last week’s drop has again led to the question “So where’s the volatility?” After all it’s not like there aren’t dangers in this world that might lead a trader to bid up the price of protecting against those dangers. It’s certainly not in the VIX, which looks for volatility in the S&P 500 future. But there’s actually plenty out there. It’s just all in the Treasury futures market where traders are hedging their bets on 10-year and 30-year Treasuries big time. The implied volatility in those futures markets has soared in the last couple of weeks.
A very heavy week for earnings will reach a crescendo on Thursday, November 2 with reports from Alibaba and Apple. The excitement isn’t surprising after the huge earnings that Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and Intel (INTC) delivered this past Thursday, October 26. This week Facebook (FB) is the Wednesday, November 1, Â warmup act.
