Top 10 News Items 10/10-10/14: Stocks Continue Last Week's Rally; Google Destroys Q3 Estimates; Slovakia Ratifies Latest Euro Bailout Fund
Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street:
1. Stocks continued to charge this week, extending a 2 percent rise last week. The S&P 500 closed nearly 6 percent higher this week. Gold remains under $1,700 an ounce and crude oil is hanging around $87/barrel. The VIX pushed below the 30 level this week, suggesting volatility may be easing, but astute traders would probably argue otherwise. While seemingly positive developments in the Euroarea helped spur upside in equities, pundits are pointing at a rebound in investor sentiment as the main driver.
2. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) shares rose more than 5 percent on Friday following blow-out Q3 results. The search giant reported EPS of $9.72 on sales ex-TAC of $7.61 billion. The Street was looking for EPS of $8.74 on sales of $7.19 billion. The stock was up more than 8 percent ahead of the quarterly figures as traders were anticipating the strong results.
3. Slovakia become the last member of the 17-country Eurozone to ratify the latest bailout fund, completing EFSF approval. While this marks the next step in the right direction, Europe is very far from out of trouble.
4. Although RIM (Nasdaq: RIMM) shares did not reflect the news this week, the maker of BlackBerry had a very major worldwide 3-day outage. As RIM's network went back and forth between working and not working (and amid the release of the latest iPhone), users around the world have certainly began considering dropping their "CrackBerry."
5. Alcoa (NYSE: AA) kicked off the Q3 earnings season with a big, fat....... miss! Despite the concerning results, the stock traded higher. Elsewhere in Earnings Land, JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) shares traded higher on a beat, as did Pepsi (NYSE: PEP).
6. After being found guilty of insider trading in early May of this year, Raj Rajaratnam was sentenced to 132 months in prison (11 years) this week. While the prosecutor sought a longer sentence, Rajaratnam's lawyers used his health as a function to reduce his sentence. The former fund manager will be placed in the Butner facility, currently where Bernie Madoff is imprisoned.
7. The Occupy Wall Street protest received a lot of media coverage this week, however, not much has changed. Protestors took to the streets, visiting the homes of top bankers and regulators. The major development for the week was that protesters were not kicked out of Zuccotti Park, in need of some cleaning after the month or so of protesting.
8. Despite news Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) has decided not to split its DVD and streaming business, traders continued to sell the stock this week. Analysts and traders are questioning whether the move was an almost-panic move by CEO Reed Hastings.
9. Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone 4S had record pre-orders of over 1 million in first 24-hours, up from the single day record of 600,000 for the iPhone 4. Lines of Friday, the first day of retail availability, were not as crazy as some had expected. Apple shares rose each day this week, gaining more than 13 percent.
10. Minutes from the latest Fed meeting showed several members on the Committee voted to keep the option of QE3 on the table. Click here to see the FOMC's full minutes.
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1. Stocks continued to charge this week, extending a 2 percent rise last week. The S&P 500 closed nearly 6 percent higher this week. Gold remains under $1,700 an ounce and crude oil is hanging around $87/barrel. The VIX pushed below the 30 level this week, suggesting volatility may be easing, but astute traders would probably argue otherwise. While seemingly positive developments in the Euroarea helped spur upside in equities, pundits are pointing at a rebound in investor sentiment as the main driver.
2. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) shares rose more than 5 percent on Friday following blow-out Q3 results. The search giant reported EPS of $9.72 on sales ex-TAC of $7.61 billion. The Street was looking for EPS of $8.74 on sales of $7.19 billion. The stock was up more than 8 percent ahead of the quarterly figures as traders were anticipating the strong results.
3. Slovakia become the last member of the 17-country Eurozone to ratify the latest bailout fund, completing EFSF approval. While this marks the next step in the right direction, Europe is very far from out of trouble.
4. Although RIM (Nasdaq: RIMM) shares did not reflect the news this week, the maker of BlackBerry had a very major worldwide 3-day outage. As RIM's network went back and forth between working and not working (and amid the release of the latest iPhone), users around the world have certainly began considering dropping their "CrackBerry."
5. Alcoa (NYSE: AA) kicked off the Q3 earnings season with a big, fat....... miss! Despite the concerning results, the stock traded higher. Elsewhere in Earnings Land, JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) shares traded higher on a beat, as did Pepsi (NYSE: PEP).
6. After being found guilty of insider trading in early May of this year, Raj Rajaratnam was sentenced to 132 months in prison (11 years) this week. While the prosecutor sought a longer sentence, Rajaratnam's lawyers used his health as a function to reduce his sentence. The former fund manager will be placed in the Butner facility, currently where Bernie Madoff is imprisoned.
7. The Occupy Wall Street protest received a lot of media coverage this week, however, not much has changed. Protestors took to the streets, visiting the homes of top bankers and regulators. The major development for the week was that protesters were not kicked out of Zuccotti Park, in need of some cleaning after the month or so of protesting.
8. Despite news Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) has decided not to split its DVD and streaming business, traders continued to sell the stock this week. Analysts and traders are questioning whether the move was an almost-panic move by CEO Reed Hastings.
9. Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone 4S had record pre-orders of over 1 million in first 24-hours, up from the single day record of 600,000 for the iPhone 4. Lines of Friday, the first day of retail availability, were not as crazy as some had expected. Apple shares rose each day this week, gaining more than 13 percent.
10. Minutes from the latest Fed meeting showed several members on the Committee voted to keep the option of QE3 on the table. Click here to see the FOMC's full minutes.
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