Top 10 News Items 4/19-4/23: Earnings Season in Full Effect, Financials Mostly Done, Tech Heating Up
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Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street:
1. Earnings season is in full swing this week with major players in the financial, tech and consumer goods sectors reporting, for the most part, better-than-expected results. In the financial group, Citi (NYSE: C) reported quarterly EPS of $0.14 on sales of $25.4 billion. Shares jumped 7% on Monday when the numbers were reported, but fell for most of the rest of the week. Goldman (NYSE: GS) reported EPS of $5.59 and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) reported a quarterly loss that came in better than the Street had been looking for. In the credit card subsector, Visa (NYSE: V) and AmEx (NYSE: AXP) also reported.
2. In the tech sector, IBM (NYSE: IBM), Juniper (Nasdaq: JNPR), eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) all reported. Notably, Apple surged 6% after reporting results, and is now trading at all-time highs over $270.
3. Also on the earnings front, Coke (NYSE: KO), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Altria (NYSE: MO), AT&T (NYSE: T), McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Pepsi (NYSE: PEP), Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Honeywell (NYSE: HON) issued their quarterly figures.
4. New home sales for the month of March surged a jaw-dropping 27% to a seasonally adjusted 411,000. The Street had been looking for a rise to 330,000. The massive jump marked the largest monthly increase since 1963. Homebuilding stocks had an extremely strong day following the news. Existing home sales meanwhile, released on Thursday, rose 6.8% YoY to 5.35 million.
5. The Greek government said Friday that it will ask the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to come through on the promised emergency support package to help stabilize the nation’s finances. The announcement from Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou comes as the country stares down a default on major loan repayments due in less than a month. A spokesman from the EU said that Brussels will move swiftly to respond to the request. "There is a real danger to the economy and we cannot accept that," Mr. Papandreou said in his televised statement. "The time that the markets won't give us, the mechanism will."So we have decided to activate the mechanism provided by our European partners."
6. GM repaid the $8.1 billion in government loans it owed this week, completing the task about five years ahead of schedule. Although the news is just a step in the right direction, the US government is touting that we are now seeing signs that the bailout of the auto industry is working.
7. Things at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) cooled off this week following last week's SEC fraud charge debacle. Although much more will come from this story, most pundits believe that while the charges will certainly be an issue for the reputation of Goldman, the news will not impact performance very much.
8. Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) shares jumped more than 15% on Thursday of this week, taking the stock over what looks like a lofty level of $100. Much better-than-expected Q1 results had traders buying the stock hand over first and analysts running to catch up with themselves. Interestingly, analysts seem to be all over the place on this one: even with a litany of price target raises following the earnings, most analysts' targets are below that of the actual stock price, something which does not happen very often on Wall Street.
9. Initial jobless claims rose higher than economists had been expecting for the third week in a row last week. Claims came in at 456,000, vs. the consensus of 450,000 while continuing claims totaled 4.646 million.
10. A Transocean (NYSE: RIG) rig owned by BP (NYSE: BP) exploded in the Gulf of Mexico this week, leaving in its wake numerous missing people and a massive oil spill. Although the news wasn't exactly a hot topic on Wall Street, mainstream media was all over this one.
1. Earnings season is in full swing this week with major players in the financial, tech and consumer goods sectors reporting, for the most part, better-than-expected results. In the financial group, Citi (NYSE: C) reported quarterly EPS of $0.14 on sales of $25.4 billion. Shares jumped 7% on Monday when the numbers were reported, but fell for most of the rest of the week. Goldman (NYSE: GS) reported EPS of $5.59 and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) reported a quarterly loss that came in better than the Street had been looking for. In the credit card subsector, Visa (NYSE: V) and AmEx (NYSE: AXP) also reported.
2. In the tech sector, IBM (NYSE: IBM), Juniper (Nasdaq: JNPR), eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) all reported. Notably, Apple surged 6% after reporting results, and is now trading at all-time highs over $270.
3. Also on the earnings front, Coke (NYSE: KO), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Altria (NYSE: MO), AT&T (NYSE: T), McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Pepsi (NYSE: PEP), Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Honeywell (NYSE: HON) issued their quarterly figures.
4. New home sales for the month of March surged a jaw-dropping 27% to a seasonally adjusted 411,000. The Street had been looking for a rise to 330,000. The massive jump marked the largest monthly increase since 1963. Homebuilding stocks had an extremely strong day following the news. Existing home sales meanwhile, released on Thursday, rose 6.8% YoY to 5.35 million.
5. The Greek government said Friday that it will ask the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to come through on the promised emergency support package to help stabilize the nation’s finances. The announcement from Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou comes as the country stares down a default on major loan repayments due in less than a month. A spokesman from the EU said that Brussels will move swiftly to respond to the request. "There is a real danger to the economy and we cannot accept that," Mr. Papandreou said in his televised statement. "The time that the markets won't give us, the mechanism will."So we have decided to activate the mechanism provided by our European partners."
6. GM repaid the $8.1 billion in government loans it owed this week, completing the task about five years ahead of schedule. Although the news is just a step in the right direction, the US government is touting that we are now seeing signs that the bailout of the auto industry is working.
7. Things at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) cooled off this week following last week's SEC fraud charge debacle. Although much more will come from this story, most pundits believe that while the charges will certainly be an issue for the reputation of Goldman, the news will not impact performance very much.
8. Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) shares jumped more than 15% on Thursday of this week, taking the stock over what looks like a lofty level of $100. Much better-than-expected Q1 results had traders buying the stock hand over first and analysts running to catch up with themselves. Interestingly, analysts seem to be all over the place on this one: even with a litany of price target raises following the earnings, most analysts' targets are below that of the actual stock price, something which does not happen very often on Wall Street.
9. Initial jobless claims rose higher than economists had been expecting for the third week in a row last week. Claims came in at 456,000, vs. the consensus of 450,000 while continuing claims totaled 4.646 million.
10. A Transocean (NYSE: RIG) rig owned by BP (NYSE: BP) exploded in the Gulf of Mexico this week, leaving in its wake numerous missing people and a massive oil spill. Although the news wasn't exactly a hot topic on Wall Street, mainstream media was all over this one.
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