With Egypt simmering in the background and the all-important January nonfarm payroll report coming out Friday morning, the market gets to digest a lot of earnings and economic reports today.
The overall tone of these reports is mixed, with strong economic reports and few notable weak earnings reports. The January same-store sales numbers were mixed, with Target coming short, and Macy’s coming ahead of expectations.
The economic reports were favorable, with Jobless Claims and Productivity coming in better than expected. This is in-line with the trend of positive economic reports that we have been seeing in recent days. Later today, we will be looking for another gain in the ISM Services Index. The major report, as we all know, is Friday’s jobs report.
On the earnings front, we got better than expected results from Viacom and Dow Chemicals. Merk, the drugs giant, beat EPS and revenue expectations, but provided weak guidance. Cereal maker, Kellogg, came in-line with EPS expectations, but provided ‘softish’ guidance reflecting the run-up in grain prices. The oil super major, Royal-Dutch Shell, also came short of earnings expectations.
Sheraz Mian
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