3rd quarter earnings “officially” kick off today with Alcoa announcing earnings after the close.
Analysts are expecting just 1% profit growth for the S&P 500, down from about 4% a week ago, according to this Investor’s Business Daily article.
Financials and homebuilders are expected to be very weak while hope for strength appears to rest with technology and industrial companies.
After the bell on Wednesday women’s retailer Chico’s FAS (NYSE: CHS) warned that August same store sales are showing a decline of about 3% and that it sees dismal same store sales for its third quarter, according to the Wall…
A few weeks after each Fed meeting, the minutes for that meeting are released. The minutes are not an actual transcript of what was said but a shamelessly doctored summary. As I tried to explain a couple weeks ago the…
Before the open today Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), the nation’s largest electronics retailer, announced a pretty good fiscal (ended Aug 26, 2006) second quarter. Same store sales in the United States were up 3.0% in the three months ended Aug…
On Tuesday I wrote: The Street interpreted Best Buy’s results as saying that the American consumer is not dead and will continue to spend on discretionary items. That interpretation seems to have played out this week. The S&P Retail Index…
On Friday I wrote: The markets are somewhat confusing right now. For the 9 weeks beginning Monday July 17, the Dow has rallied from around 10,750 to today’s close of 11,560 – a 7.5% rally. Over the same period the…
The Fed decided today to leave the federal funds rate at 5.25%. The interesting thing is that the bond market is pricing in rate cuts in the next year or so. Justin Lahart, author of the Wall Street Journal’s daily…