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Q2 Earnings Central Stays Busy, GM Sets New Record
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Thursday, July 21, 2016
At these times in the thick of earnings season, sometimes it’s enough just to try to keep up. Yesterday after the bell we saw big earnings beats from Qualcomm (QCOM - Free Report) and American Express (AXP - Free Report) . Intel (INTC - Free Report) also beat earnings estimates on in-line revenues, but concerns regarding sales growth metrics of its Data Center segment disappointed investors, and INTC stock is trading down in the pre-market.
This morning, we see huge numbers for General Motors (GM - Free Report) , which beat both on the top and bottom lines — in fact, one of the “Big Three” U.S. automakers set a sales record of $2.87 billion in its Q2. GM posted higher margins overall and reached its first profit in the European market since 2011. Also, GM has guided higher for fiscal 2016.
Southwest Airlines (LUV - Free Report) , on the other hand, missed analyst expectations before the bell today. This amounts to the Zacks Rank #5’s (Strong Sell) first negative earnings surprise of the last 5 quarters or longer.
Biogen (BIIB - Free Report) has beaten estimates prior to today’s market open on both top and bottom lines, and the company announced a share buyback of $5 billion. The pharma company also announced its CEO would be stepping down. Shares are trading up 5.5% ahead of the bell.
Travelers (TRV - Free Report) topped analyst expectations, as did Blackstone (BX - Free Report) this morning. The ongoing cavalcade of positive Q2 earnings — aside from disappointments in the airlines industry lately — looks to continue undisrupted.
European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi announced this morning that they will be leaving rates unchanged, while the central bank continues to watch post-Brexit activity very closely. In his news conference today, Draghi said he expects Brexit to continue as a headwind for the European economy, and growth risks remain to the downside. However, he also remarked that markets are providing “encouraging resilience.”
“Encouraging resilience” is a term that might also be applied to the U.S. job market of late: weekly Jobless Claims remained admirably low at 253K this morning, down 1000 from last week’s unrevised read. Continuing claims fell from 2.128 million to 2.15 million — also at historically low levels.
This morning’s Philly Fed report for July was the only piece of negative macro economic data today with a read of -2.9. This follows a much stronger June number of 4.7.
Mark Vickery Senior Editor
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Q2 Earnings Central Stays Busy, GM Sets New Record
Thursday, July 21, 2016
At these times in the thick of earnings season, sometimes it’s enough just to try to keep up. Yesterday after the bell we saw big earnings beats from Qualcomm (QCOM - Free Report) and American Express (AXP - Free Report) . Intel (INTC - Free Report) also beat earnings estimates on in-line revenues, but concerns regarding sales growth metrics of its Data Center segment disappointed investors, and INTC stock is trading down in the pre-market.
This morning, we see huge numbers for General Motors (GM - Free Report) , which beat both on the top and bottom lines — in fact, one of the “Big Three” U.S. automakers set a sales record of $2.87 billion in its Q2. GM posted higher margins overall and reached its first profit in the European market since 2011. Also, GM has guided higher for fiscal 2016.
Southwest Airlines (LUV - Free Report) , on the other hand, missed analyst expectations before the bell today. This amounts to the Zacks Rank #5’s (Strong Sell) first negative earnings surprise of the last 5 quarters or longer.
Biogen (BIIB - Free Report) has beaten estimates prior to today’s market open on both top and bottom lines, and the company announced a share buyback of $5 billion. The pharma company also announced its CEO would be stepping down. Shares are trading up 5.5% ahead of the bell.
Travelers (TRV - Free Report) topped analyst expectations, as did Blackstone (BX - Free Report) this morning. The ongoing cavalcade of positive Q2 earnings — aside from disappointments in the airlines industry lately — looks to continue undisrupted.
European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi announced this morning that they will be leaving rates unchanged, while the central bank continues to watch post-Brexit activity very closely. In his news conference today, Draghi said he expects Brexit to continue as a headwind for the European economy, and growth risks remain to the downside. However, he also remarked that markets are providing “encouraging resilience.”
“Encouraging resilience” is a term that might also be applied to the U.S. job market of late: weekly Jobless Claims remained admirably low at 253K this morning, down 1000 from last week’s unrevised read. Continuing claims fell from 2.128 million to 2.15 million — also at historically low levels.
This morning’s Philly Fed report for July was the only piece of negative macro economic data today with a read of -2.9. This follows a much stronger June number of 4.7.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor