Stocks End Lower Yesterday, Nasdaq On Pace For Their First Down Week Of The Year Stocks closed lower yesterday, erasing early day gains. All of the indexes are now down for the week with one more trading day to go. Yesterday's Weekly Jobless Claims rose by 13,000 to 196,000 vs. views for 192,000. Earnings continued to roll in, with big names like Philip Morris, PepsiCo, and AbbVie reporting positive EPS surprises before the bell. They were all up yesterday. After the bell we heard from PayPal (positive EPS surprise of 3.33%, and CEO is stepping down), DexCom (positive EPS surprise of 30.7%), and Verisign (positive EPS surprise of 11.1%). Although, we also heard from Lyft, which reported a positive sales surprise of 1.53% on record revenue, but missed on earnings, posting a negative EPS surprise of -850%. Earning season continues today with another 74 companies on deck. That number grows to 815 reporting next week. On the economic report front today we'll get the Consumer Sentiment report. Always an important report given that roughly 70% of our GDP is comprised of consumer spending. And a positive consumer is a spending consumer. It's been a volatile week so far. But that doesn't change the fact that it's been a great start to the year. The Dow is up 1.67%; the S&P is up 6.30%; the Nasdaq is up 12.6%; and the small-cap Russell 2000 is up 8.75%. A far cry from how last year began. And unlike the beginning of last year, which saw inflation on the rise, while the Fed embarked on one of the fastest rate hikes in history; the beginning of this year sees inflation on the decline, with the pace of interest rate hikes slowing, and an end target in sight. Couple that with improving economic forecasts, and all of the positive seasonal tendencies going for the market right now, and 2023 is shaping up to be a strong year for the market. Best, Kevin Matras Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research |
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