Friends
Now we have earnings coming at us full force, and despite a drumbeat of negative outlooks, stocks continue to claw their way higher. The theme so far this quarter is a familiar one, meet or beat on the bottom line but miss on the top line. The stocks that already had priced in a less than stellar outlook seem to rally on the idea that it could have been worse, while some company’s shares that had been making new highs are selling off on the news. Lowered expectations seem to be cushioning the blows helping stocks continue their climb.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 24 points to close at 14,700. The S&P was up 6 to finish the day at 1585. Gold was up $39 to trade at $1462 per ounce, while oil was up $1.86 to trade at $93.29 per barrel WTI. The S&P was straining its neck to get a peak at 1600 at midday, but lost some steam by the afternoon.
On the economic front, the weekly jobless claims number was actually pretty darn good coming in at 339,000 new claims. Tomorrow we get our first look at 1st quarter GDP. Economists are expecting growth to have come in at about 3% for the quarter. We also get more earnings reports from the likes of Amazon and Starbucks after the close today. We’ll let you know how the week comes to an end.
Have a nice evening everyone.
