Record Run: Major Indices On A Roll As Earnings, Housing Market Looking Solid

  • 📰 Forbes
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 93 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 40%
  • Publisher: 53%

United States News News

United States United States Latest News,United States United States Headlines

Today’s housing starts number was out of the ballpark and might reflect a strong job market and low mortgage rates

December housing starts data surprise to the upsideSure, there was a slight hiccup a couple days ago, but since then things have gone pretty much straight up. Stocks seem ready to continue that today, with gains in pre-market trading. Momentum means a lot right now, and indices are rolling up new record highs almost every day.

About 7% of S&P 500 companies have reported Q4 results so far, with 74% posting better than expected earnings per share, FactSet said. Oil services company Schlumberger was the latest to beat analysts’ expectations with its top- and bottom-line results this morning, and shares rose nearly 3%, a rare sign of strength in the struggling Energy sector.

Next week the earnings schedule picks up again after Monday’s holiday, but economic data-wise it might feel like an extended holiday break. The only major number is existing home sales Wednesday. It turned out it was too early to write the obituary for semiconductors, as the PHLX Semiconductor index shot up nearly 2% amid new strength in usual suspects like Nvidia , Advanced Micro Devices , and Intel . Some of those high-fliers had started to show signs of fatigue back on Wednesday, but they revived quickly. Maybe that’s a sign that buying interest could appear on declines as some investors still see the sector leading things higher.

It’s hard to ever say one stock set the tone, but MS might have done that Thursday. It’s not often when you see one of the big institutional banks go up nearly 7% and just hang out there all day, but that’s the way things went. The company enjoyed a surge in Q4 fixed income trading, and analysts just hadn’t predicted this kind of performance. Generally, bank earnings looked very impressive with the exception of Wells Fargo and a bottom-line miss from Goldman Sachs .

One sign of broader market strength is that both the Russell 2000 small-cap index and the Dow Jones Transportation Average outpaced the broader SPX yesterday. These two indices had been laggards, but any improvement in their fortunes might bode well for the market because small-caps and transports are often seen as canaries in the coal mine.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

NAHB economist said different

Thank you for reporting truth.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 394. in US

United States United States Latest News, United States United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Dow futures rise, stocks will aim to cap a record-setting week with a flourish higherU.S. stock futures head firmly higher Friday morning, putting the three main equity gauges in position to cap a record-setting rally that has taken hold in just the third week of the new year, with the weakest annual growth in China in about three decades appearing to have little effect on the bullish mood. CRYPTOCURRENCY DIGITALASSETS rising up for safety net !!! Fyi BREAKING!!!🚀🚀🚀 bitcoin runs on Ripple $XRP Ledger for FASTER PAYMENTS SETTLEMENT THRU BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY Guess what, XRP IS THE STANDARD of INTERNET of Value !!!
Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »