Going into today, most eyes will be on the jobless claims report and building permits report at 8:30 AM. The market is already looking to go green, but these indicators will need to be better than expected to continue the bull market run today. I will update on these when they are release.
8:40 AM Update: Jobless claims and building permits came in very bullish. Jobless claims came in down to 550,000 while estimates were expected to increase to 593,000. That is really great because the market had priced in the increase and expected job losses. That makes this even better. Canada’s building permits were better than expected to, which should indirectly help the market.
Overall, today’s market is looking pretty good to bounce back after yesterday’s breather (besides those key data points). The stock market took some pullbacks yesterday on weak jobs data and corporate earnings. We have reversed one of those trends already today. Comcast released solid earnings with a 54% rise in profits, year-over-year, and it beats analyst estimates by more than 25%, reporting an EPS of 0.33, while estimates were at 0.26 EPS. Also, Sirius XM Radio said its revenue more than doubled as it met analyst expectations on profits.
On the retail front, reports were mixed coming from two major companies, Costco and Aeropostale. Costco reported same-store sales down 7%, which was worse than the 6.7% expected from analysts. However, Aeropostale had record sales in July, increasing 6% from last year, and the company raised its Q2 guidance on the bullish news. This comes after retailers have already had a great run off of lows in 2008. On the earnings and company report front, things appear better than worse, which is helping to explain morning futures.
Futures are up pretty heavily in the morning trading session. As of 8:00 AM, the Dow is up 45 points, the Nasdaq is up 1 point, and the S&P is up 3.5 points. The S&P looking very good this morning. Things are definitely being helped by some great foreign news, as well. Asia had a great day on a “technical rebound” as investors bought bargains.
“It was a technical rebound as there were few incentives to buy shares today,” commented Yutaka Miura, senior strategist at Mizuho Securities Co. Ltd, on Bloomberg.
Europe is doing well, as well, on corporate earnings and the European’s Central Bank’s decision to keep interest rates at the same levels to help continue…
