Here is a wrap up of today’s major news in the stock market.
First of all, Spain was downgraded by S&P to a BBB credit rating. That is bad news for this Euro Zone economy. They seem like they will be the next casualty of the debt crisis in Europe. Unless there is major political change in Spain, I don’t see them getting any better. In fact, S&P maintained a negative outlook for Spain.
Amazon continued to streak of positive earnings from companies this week. I guess analysts just had a negative outlook on companies’ earnings. It seems like one company after another is beating earnings estimates this week. Their earnings in the first quarter came from sales of their Kindles.
Yesterday, it was Apple that beat the street, which took the NASDAQ up more than 2%. There have been a lot of commentary about Apple, especially after all of the negative rumors yesterday. I think it was good because a lot of the nay sayers of Apple got their say. I tend to agree with them. Steve Jobs was a charismatic leader that birthed a lot of their innovation. Apple will continue on the track that he laid out for the next couple of years, but I don’t think they will be able to take it to the next level without him. I like Tim Cook, but he’s no Steve Jobs unfortunately for Apple.
Starbucks also beat the street on profits. They close up 1.95% on the day to 60.66 a share.
Movers and Shakers in the Stock Market
Logitech International, the company that makes the computer hardware accessories like web cams, keyboards and mice, gained 21.44%. They currently have a P/E of 35.38. Their market cap is $1.63 billion.
SolarWinds, Inc gained 19.99% today to close at 45.38. They rose 7.56 a share today. This stock currently has a P/E of 54.11.
Among the losers were NII Holdings Inc which lost 23 points and Alcatel Lucent, which lost 17.95 points on the day.
The energy sector rose the most gaining 1.3% today. Of the gainers in this sector were Headwaters Inc, which gained almost 8 percent and Callon Petroleum Company, which rose 7.22 percent. The most active by dollar volumes in this sector were the usual suspects. Exxon Mobil lost .9% to close at 86.07 and Chevron gained 2.28% to close at 106.22.
Jobs Report
Jobless claims came in last week at 388,000. That was higher than expected. The 4-week moving average, which helps to filter out the noise in the stats, rose to 381,750. That is not a good sign for the job market.
The cold hard reality is that until the job market recovers, we don’t have a fully functioning economy. Remember, a full two-thirds of our economy is based on domestic consumption. That means if there are no jobs, there is no spending.
Other News
In other news, the Bank of Japan was rumored to further monetary easing policies. That isn’t a surprise. After a decade of stagnate growth, they had a tsunami that wiped out a lot of their industry. In addition, the Fukushima nuclear fall out served to virtually obliterate the nuclear industry in Japan. With no nuclear, where are they going to find energy to fuel their economy? No one really knows yet and it hasn’t helped their already struggling economy.
Samsung is continuing to do well in the mobile space. Their Galaxy phones continue to be the top competitor to Apple. They brought in a profit of $5 billion.
The housing market has yet to recover. In addition, there is a back log of foreclosures in many markets around the country that is about the be released. Sometimes, I wish I had a ton of cash lying around to scoop up these foreclosures. Just because people can’t buy homes does not mean they are homeless. They have to live somewhere, which means they are renting. I would love to be one of those renting out these dirt cheap foreclosed homes right now. And honesty, I have no idea why anyone would not buy a foreclosed home at this point and do a traditional sale. I would think with all of the foreclosed houses out there, you could find SOMETHING that would appeal to you enough.
France is having some problems. They were downgrade along with 7 other Euro Zone countries in January. Now they may be electing a socialist into power. That is not good news for the economic situation there.
In spite all of the bad news out there, I still think that there are good stocks to buy right now. Check out other parts of my website to get insights on how you can leverage our current state of things. =D
