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…
Historically, real disposable personal income has been the dominant factor driving consumer spending. As long as businesses maintain employment, and wages continue to rise, reflecting tight labor markets, rising personal income will outweigh the negative impacts of declining home prices,…
These companies are not going to see their markets jump back immediately. Their earnings power has been lowered. This is a reason to sell not buy. The theory that if the company writes off $2 billion it should see its…
For all of you geting swept up in the euphoria over all these speculative Chinese stocks, forget about it. I have a better alternative for you: Yum! Brands (YUM) (website). Yum is the operator of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and…
Google (GOOG) has made about a 25% move, from below $500 to around $610 at the close today, over the last 8 weeks (since Thurday August 16th) (Chart). What’s interesting to me is that Google itself hasn’t really reported any…
“It’s amazing, the difference in six weeks.” – Alan Lancz, Director, Lancz Global Well it finally happened: The S&P took out it’s all time closing high closing today at 1558. The Dow is like 20 points below its record close from Monday. Financials are…
Homebuilders have been on fire this week mainly, it seems, on the strength of a Monday upgrade by Citigroup Homebuilder Analyst Stephen Kim. Check out the moves in some of these builders (as of Fri 10/5, 1pm EST): KB Home…
This morning Merrill Lynch (MER) announced an estimated $5.5 billion in writedowns ($4.5 million related to mortgage backed securities and $1 billion to leveraged loan commitments) and forecast a loss for the quarter of up to 50 cents per share…
This morning The Bureau of Labor Statistics came out and said the economy added 110,000 jobs in September and revised the August number from -4,000 to 89,000. Given what a big reaction the market had to the bad jobs report…
An interesting chart from BeSpoke Investment Group shows more than 80% of the companies in the S&P Financials trading above their 50 day moving average. That’s a higher level than we’ve seen since before the emergence of problems with subprime…