Big Earnings Week Ahead
Stocks are higher as investors hope first-quarter earnings will meet
expectations. Seventy
companies–or 15% of the S&P 500–will report this week, including
(
JNJ |
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(
MER |
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(
INTC |
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(
APPL |
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(
AMD |
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(
EMC |
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Bank of America
upgraded Comcast
(
CMCSA |
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PowerRating) to “buy” and raised its price target to
$41 on favorable industry fundamentals. The banker believes Comcast will walk
away from Disney’s
(
DIS |
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Disney.
Gannett
(
GCI |
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PowerRating)
reported earnings of $274.4 million on strong ad growth, with revenue rising 11%
to $1.73 billion. Its TV division showed a 7% increase in revenue and its
newspaper division reported a 12% increase in revenue. Abbott Laboratories
(
ABT |
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PowerRating) traded lower after a downgrade from JP Morgan due to increased concern
over generic competition on some of its products.
| Dow | +74.48 |
10516.03 |
| S&P 500 |
+5.79 | 1145.13 |
| Nasdaq | +11.69 |
2064.53 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Oil Services
(
OSX.X |
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PowerRating) +2.37%, Energy
(
DXE.X |
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PowerRating) +2.00%,
Oil Index
(
XOI.X |
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Chart |
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PowerRating) +1.72%, and Natural Gas
(
XNG.X |
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PowerRating) +1.14%.
Weak today are REITs
(
DJR.X |
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PowerRating)
-4.79%, and Amex Gold Bugs
(
HUI.X |
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PowerRating) -1.08%.
No Economic news releases today
10-year Notes are -95 at
112 100
The dollar
is -0.01 at 89.26
Gold is -1.50 at 418.40
Crude oil is +0.48 at
37.07
Volume is 500,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 720,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is positive.
| NYSE | Issues | |
| Advancing |
1701 | Up Vol 286 |
| Declining | 1421 | Down Vol 204 |
| Ratio | 1.21 | 1.40 |
| Nasdaq |
||
| Advancing |
1781 | Up Vol 493 |
| Declining |
1257 | Down Vol 198 |
| Ratio | 1.42 | 2.49 |
Top Dow stocks are:
ExxonMobil
(
XOM |
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PowerRating),
+1.95% at 43.20, Caterpillar
(
CAT |
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PowerRating) +1.81% at 83.51, Boeing
(
BA |
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PowerRating)
+1.73% at 42.07, and Du Pont
(
DD |
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PowerRating) +1.47% at 44.09
Stocks in the news:
Advanced Micro Devices
(
AMD |
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PowerRating)
has settled a microprocessor patent suit with Intergraph. AMD will pay
Intergraph a maximum of $25 million. JMP Securities also raised its estimates,
citing better margins.
Entergy
(
ETR |
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PowerRating) lowered its
first-quarter earnings estimates to 85 cents a share, citing lower profits from
its energy marketing and trading partnership.
DuPont
(
DD |
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PowerRating) will cut
3,500 jobs–representing 6% of its workforce–as part of a previously announced
plan to reduce costs by $900 million.
Microsoft
(
MSFT |
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InterTrust’s patent suit over anti-piracy technology for digital music and
movies for $440 million.
Brice Wightman
bricew@tradingmarkets.com