Posts Tagged ‘profits’

(Lee Siler) - Stocks took a hit yesterday despite a slew of positive earnings news. It appears that the recent run up in stocks prices was in anticipation of a better than expected third quarter with regards to profits. It is ominous that the market can't seem to chug higher in the midst of terrific quarterly reports. With about 25% of the S&P 500 reporting earnings, approximately 79% of companies have beat analysts' expectations. That is itself is much better than average.

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(Lee Siler) - A deeper than expected jobless number has stocks reeling for the second day in a row. After suffering the worst one-day performance in months, the major averages are indicating a significantly lower opening. In September U.S. employers cut a worse than expected 263,000 jobs which took the unemployment rate from 9.7% to 9.8%. Analysts expected non-farm payrolls to drop 180,000 in September; this is a far cry from the actual number.

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(Lee Siler) - On the surface, this morning's durable goods number looked pretty strong. The Commerce department reported that durable goods jumped 4.9% in July. That was the biggest increase since 2007. However, if you strip out transportation goods the index only rose 0.8% which was below analysts' expectations. The Commerce Department will also be releasing data on July new home sales later today.

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(Lee Siler) - The market is poised to open significantly lower on a plunge in the Chinese markets. Overnight the Shanghai stock market dropped almost 6% and the major indexes in Europe were all down roughly 1.5%. Today's move is a follow from Friday's negative consumer sentiment numbers.

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(Lee Siler) - A surprisingly strong jobs report helped stocks jump more than 1% on Friday and more than 2% on the week. The unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped from 9.5% to 9.4% for the month of July. This news was clearly welcomed by investors, as well as President Obama, who said, "The worst may be behind us." Jobs were the one element in this bottoming process we hadn't seen until now.

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(Lee Siler) - Markets will try to rally this morning on positive earnings and unemployment data. The Labor Department reported that the number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits unexpectedly dropped last week to 6.2 million. Economists had been expecting 6.3 million.

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(Lee Siler) - Stocks had their best week in months, as some of the old school companies blew out earnings estimates. Companies like Goldman Sachs, Intel and IBM all beat a pessimistic outlook, as it seems analysts may have taken their estimates way too low. Even the banks stocks are coming in better than expected. Bank of America and Citigroup beat views despite a credit loss. Thus far, the majority of companies reporting second quarter earnings are beating views. However, it is still very early in the season. This week will be extremely busy on the earnings front, especially in the tech sector.

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(Lee Siler) - Markets got wacked yesterday, as the economic outlook for 2009 and 2010 was grimmer than initially expected. The World Bank, a government funded lender to poor countries, said the global economy will contract 2.9% this year. That's much worse than the 1.7% previous projected. The World Bank also cut its 2010 outlook to 2% growth versus its previous forecast of 2.3% for 2010. Also in the news, which shouldn't be a surprise, the government announced that they see unemployment getting to 10%. This was widely predicted, but finally confirmed.

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(William Garrett) - Keeping your cool can be hard to do when the market goes on one of its periodic roller-coaster rides. It’s useful to have strategies in place that prepare you both financially and psychologically to handle market volatility. Here are 11ways to help keep yourself from making hasty decisions that could have a long-term impact on [...]

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(Money Manager) - The ability to reap additional profits on the sale of your home can be accomplished easily enough if you make the right improvements. Making these changes early on can provide the prospective buyer with an enhanced feeling about your home, more space, more light, more rooms, closet space, privacy, warmth and security. Basic, simple and inexpensive improvements can provide an improved emotional appeal for a potential buyer.

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