Friends
While the business news stations blabber on about a large hedge fund manager being charged by the SEC, let’s talk about earnings season. Today’s releases were a good microcosm of the past two weeks of earnings. We got good reports from the likes of General Electric, Honeywell and Schlumberger, and not so good reports from Google and Microsoft. Indeed, tech has had a difficult earnings season so far. The best numbers have come from financials, with Bank of America, Citi and Goldman Sachs delivering good numbers this week.
As for the market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 4 points to close at 15,543. The S&P was up 2 points to finish the day at 1692. Gold was up $10 to trade at $1294 per ounce, while oil was up $.36 to trade at $108.40 per barrel WTI.
Next week’s setup is interesting. We have Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony behind us and are about a quarter of the way through earnings season. Remember, watch how stocks react to the company’s earnings release. If good news is sold, then the shares were overbought. If bad news is bought, then the shares were oversold. It will give you a good “tell” on where investors are focusing. Let’s see if the S&P can penetrate 1700 next week.
Have a great weekend everyone.
