Record Quarter For This Blue Chip
Stocks today
are flat. Home Depot
(
HD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) came
out with stylish numbers as its net rose 22% to $1.15 billion on $16.6 billion
of revenue. Stronger earnings were attributed to higher demand for
home-improvement goods. The company also upped fiscal year revenue of 9% to 12%
higher sales, with earnings of $1.79 a share. General Electric
(
GE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) received
an upgrade from Merrill Lynch. The company is expected to continue its double-digit earnings after
four years of flat profits. Economic numbers released today included core inflation
rate that rose 0.2% in October, overall CPI for the first ten
months that rose 2.3%, and energy prices falling 3.9% in October.
The Dow Jones Industrial
Average
(
$INDU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is up 0.11% at 9722.64. The S&P 500
(
$SPX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
is up 0.14% at 1045.21. The Nasdaq
(
$COMPQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is up 0.37% at
1916.20.
The day’s leading sectors are Amex
Gold Bugs Index
(
$HUI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +3.01%, Gold and Silver Sector Index
(
$XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
+2.64%, Pharmaceutical Index
(
$DRG.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +1.09%, GSTI
Multimedia Index
(
$GIP.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +1.05%.
Weak today are Biotech Index [BTK.X|BTK.X]
-0.71%, Morg Stnly Health Provider Index
(
$RXH.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
-0.49% and Oil Service Sector Index
(
$OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), -0.45%.
Economic news releases for
today included Core CPI up 0.2%, CPI was flat at 0%.
10-year Notes are
-35 at 113 170.
The dollar is -0.87 at
90.79.
Gold is +0.51 at 396.60.
Crude Oil is +0.27
at 32.00.
Volume is 586,000,000
on the NYSE, and 821,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is positive,
with NYSE issues advancing over declining issues by 1.47 and up over down volume
by 1.05; Nasdaq issues advancing
over declining issues at 1.51, and up over down volume at 1.34.
Top Dow stocks are:
General Electric [GE|GE],
+3.5% at 28.80, Microsoft
(
MSFT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
+1.93% at 25.63, Johnson and Johnson [JNJ|JNJ],
+1.71% at 51.82, and Merck
(
MRK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +1.2% at 46.62
Stocks in the news:
Prudential Financial
(
PRU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
has announced its purchase of the retirement business of Cigna
(
CI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) for
$2.1 billion in cash.
BJ’s Wholesale Club
(
BJ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is down 5% after reporting lower profit for the past quarter. Earnings fell to
$20.4 billion
on higher sales of $1.6 billion.
CalPERS has shown Putnam Investments
(
MMC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
the way out after the board ruled Putnam had breached its fiduciary duty by
failing to adequately stop employees from making frequent trades in its mutual
funds. The union had $1.2 billion in assets with Putnam.
Staples
(
SPLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) reported higher third-quarter
net income of $166 million above Wall Street consensus. Revenue was also
up 14% to $3.5 billion.
If you have any comments or questions, please
feel free to email me.
bricew@tradingmarkets.com