Stocks in range as earnings flow
Stocks are little-changed this morning as investors digest major corporate results after yesterday's broad rally.
S&P 500 futures up fractionally after climbing for the last hour. European markets are also about flat and have traded similarly. Asia was little-changed overnight, aside from a 1.6 percent gain in Mumbai after Standard & Poor's said it may raise India's credit rating.
Equities gained more than 1 percent yesterday, fighting back from a drop last week that sent the S&P 500 under its 100-day moving average for the first time since early February. While most economic data has been strong, momentum has slowed in the last month following more than a year of solid gains, and volatility is increasing.
Earnings will likely serve as the main catalyst for the rest of this month. GOOG fell 2 percent after weak advertising rates caused it to miss estimates yesterday afternoon. IBM dropped 4 percent on a weak revenue number and poor guidance. Memory-chip maker SanDisk, however, is up 7 percent on a strong quarterly report.
This morning's big companies--Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Morgan Stanley, and PepsiCo--are all trading higher after beating estimates. DuPont, Baxter, Mattel, UnitedHealth, and Union Pacific report as well.
The main economic numbers are initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's regional-activity index at 10 a.m. ET, and natural-gas inventories at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Trading may also be light as investors leave early with markets closed for Good Friday tomorrow.
The last month has also seen a shift in sentiment toward stocks that will benefit from an improving macroeconomic picture, such as energy, industrials, and materials. Emerging-market stocks, especially Latin American utilities and banks, have also surfaced as new leadership areas. (See our researchLAB market-analysis tool for more.)
Copper and grains are the biggest movers in the commodity markets, gaining almost half a percent. Foreign-exchange markets are little-changed, with the euro modestly higher.
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