Friends
Our first look at earnings reports was very interesting. Big banks like JP Morgan Chase and Citi had good numbers and their shares moved nicely higher. Wells Fargo and PNC Bank had decent numbers also, but their shares fared a lot worse. United Health seemed to surprise to the upside, but the shares of the giant healthcare provider fell sharply. If our first glance at Corporate America’s report card is telling us anything it is that whatever the numbers are, the expectations and set up going into the print might be much more important with regards to share price reaction. In addition, this morning’s retail sales number was negative month over month indicating a slowing by the consumer might be occurring.
As for stocks, after yesterday’s move higher, the bulls seemed to run out of gas early and share prices fell throughout most of the trading session. For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 143 points to close at 33,886. The S&P 500 was down 8 points to finish the day at 4,137. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 42 points to close at 12,123. Gold was down $35 to trade at $2,020 per ounce, while oil was up $.47 to trade at $82.63 per barrel WTI.
Today was just an appetizer for earnings. Next week we will get a look at reports from the likes of Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, United Airlines, Netflix, Johnson & Johnson, Tesla, American Airlines, AT&T, Abbot Labs, Baker Hughes, Travelers, Dow, Morgan Stanley, Union Pacific, and Schlumberger just to mention a few. Stay tuned, it’s going to be an interesting next couple of weeks.
Have a great weekend everyone.
