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Dow Touches New High, But Where Will It Finish 2018? | Free Lunch

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On today’s episode of Free Lunch, Associate Stock Strategist Ryan McQueeney recaps morning news involving Under Armour, Nvidia, General Electric, and Red Hat. Later, he is joined by momentum guru Dave Bartosiak to discuss the Dow hitting a new all-time high and to speculate over where our major indexes might finish the year.

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Free Lunch is the newest show from Zacks Investment Research. It is streamed live, four times per week, and features breaking news and analysis from Zacks strategists. Free Lunch is available on YouTube, Facebook Live, Twitter, Ustream, and more.

There were plenty of stocks on the move in morning trading Thursday, with the likes of Under Armour (UAA - Free Report) nabbing headlines as management revised the company’s profit outlook higher. That outlook was, however, based on adjusted earnings expectations, as the company now plans to spend more on restructuring costs which are not factored into such figures. Still, investors liked the news and sent UAA higher this morning.

Elsewhere, shares of Nvidia (NVDA - Free Report) moved lower after analysts from Morgan Stanley noted “mixed” data points in the GPU maker’s gaming division. Part of the issue here was dwindling demand from cryptocurrency miners, who often used Nvidia’s gaming GPUs in their rigs. Morgan Stanley was still optimistic about the stock, but traders sent NVDA down about 2% at the open.

Likewise, the ever-struggling General Electric (GE - Free Report) also sold off on the back of a bearish analyst note. GE has a laundry list of problems to tackle, but now JPMorgan analysts have spotted another headwind that could cut into earnings. The issue relates to failures spotted while GE was installing a new set of gas turbines, and fixing it is going to cost the conglomerate some change, JPMorgan said.

Investors also put some pressure on Red Hat this morning after its most recent earnings report came in mixed. The software company was able to beat earnings estimates, but revenue and guidance were soft and spooked those weary of mounting competition from the likes of Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) .

On the first half of today’s show, Ryan recaps these stories and provide his own perspective on the news.

After that, Ryan calls up Zacks strategist and momentum guru Dave Bartosiak. The pair talked about the Dow hitting its first all-time intraday high since January and discussed what has caused the blue chip index to trail the S&P 500 and Nasdaq for months.

Dave and Ryan also look ahead to the remainder of the year, speculating about which major index will finish 2018 on the strongest note. Dave said that, although he is not bearish on tech, the Nasdaq’s heavy tech weighting could cause some sluggishness as investors cycle in to safer options. Dave also highlighted other indexes like the Russell 2000 and helped traders understand more about how these indicators are moving right now.

Want to know where Dave thinks is the best place to focus on in the latter stages of this year? Make sure to check out today’s episode!

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