Wall Street
Earnings Fuel Stock Market Gains – Dow Jones Soared More than 100 Points Midday
Yes, Friday was all about the earnings.
The stock market rallied Friday thanks to a roaring round of positive earnings reports – with a little help from positive news out of Europe.
Just after noon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 113 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 jumped 9 points and the Nasdaq gained 22.
With little on the economic calendar to close out the week, and no major reports due, market participants focused on encouraging first-quarter results from a spate of several large and market-influencing firms.
"There's been a wrestling match all week long between strong earnings and weak economic data. At the moment earnings are winning," Lawrence Centura, portfolio manager at Federated Investors told the Associated Press.
Strong Earnings Push Stock Market Gains
To date, quarterly earning has been pleasantly strong.
"The number of companies reporting positive surprises is much higher than it typically is at this stage in the game," Fred Dickson, chief market strategist of D.A. Davidson & Co. told CNN Money. "They're only beating by a little, but it's still a significant number of companies and that's the wow factor."
Of the 212 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported, better than 80% have exceeded expectations, according to Thomson Reuters. During a typical quarter, the percentage of companies that top forecasts is 60%.
Here are some recent highlights:
- Tech giant Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) lead Friday's gains in the broad-based rally after beating expectations late Thursday, reporting sales growth of 6% thanks to its Window and Office products. MSFT gained 4.55% Friday to close at $32.42.
- Investors also ate up better-than-expected numbers from fast-food king McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD), which ended the day up. The company proved it remained a worldwide favorite with same-store sales up 8.9% in the U.S., 5% in Europe and 5.5% in Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Revenue rose 8% (excluding currency fluctuations).
- Robust earnings from General Electric (NYSE: GE) pushed its stock up 1.15% to $19.36. GE narrowly beat expectations with quarterly profit of 34 cents a share, a penny higher than expected, and revenue of $35.18 billion compared to a forecast $34.7 billion.
- Meanwhile, traders traded E*Trade (Nasdaq: ETFC) up some 6% on better-than-expected first-quarter results. E*Trade's first-quarter profit rose 38% from a year earlier.
- Technology manufacturer Honeywell (NYSE: HON) beat on both earnings and revenue, sending the honey pot buzzing. First-quarter income climbed 17% from a year earlier, and the company raised its 2012 forecast.
What the JOBS Act Means for Investors – and Why It's "One Giant Leap for Fraudsters"
U.S. President Barack Obama signed the JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act) into law yesterday (Thursday) – and just put more money in Wall Street's overflowing pockets.
The JOBS Act intends to help small businesses and startups raise money and ease the IPO process for "emerging growth companies." These are companies with less than $1 billion in annual revenue, issued no more than $1 billion in debt, floated no more than $700 million in stock, and have gone public within the past five years.
While the law is designed to create jobs and help business growth, the JOBS Act actually is giving Wall Street a new way to soak money out of investors looking for the next huge money-maker. It lightens regulation that was established to prevent firms from encouraging ill-suited investments for their own financial gain.
"This law is a perfect example of how corrupt our lawmakers are," said former hedge fund manager and Money Morning Capital Waves Strategist Shah Gilani. "They're blatant about making laws to benefit paying constituents who will use and abuse the public to line their pockets and those of Congress. The public should be outraged. This is one small step for entrepreneurs and one giant leap for fraudsters."
Stock Market News Today: Why Annie's (NYSE: BNNY), Amylin (Nasdaq: AMLN) Soared Today
Among the biggest moves in stock market news today include an 87% gain for organic food maker Annie's Inc. (NYSE: BNNY) in its first trading day, and a 55% jump for Amylin Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: AMLN).
Annie's Inc. (NYSE: BNNY) surges in first-day trading: It was expected to be among the best performers of the nine other companies going public this week – and it delivered.
The organic food producer ended its first trading day up 87%. The company offered 5 million shares at $19 a share.
"It's definitely the hottest deal of the week," Scott Sweet, senior managing partner at IPO Boutique, told Reuters. "They have only a few products but they've executed very well and have high brand awareness."
Known for its organic and gluten-free foods, Annie's hopes to capitalize on Americans' increasing trend toward healthy eating.
The growing popularity of more nutrition-conscious grocery shopping is illustrated in Whole Foods Market Inc. (Nasdaq: WFM) 844% share price rise in just over three years. Same-store sales at Whole Foods have steadily risen 8% over the past two years.
Annie's sales for the 2011 fiscal year that ended March 31 were $118 million, 23% higher than 2010. Profit increased 233% to $20.2 million from the year before.
You Asked, He Answered: Shah Gilani on China, Ben Bernanke, the Fed and Much More…
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Dow Closed Above 13000: What Next?
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The Trend is Your Best "Friend" in the Stock Market
Everybody's got an opinion about the stock market.
That doesn't make it easy for anyone who listens to anyone else, or worse, listens to everyone else, to get a clear picture about what's really out there.
Of course, I have an opinion too. And of course, I'm going to tell you what it is.
But first, let me say this about that.
I never start with an opinion. I end up with an opinion, after trying not to have one.
That means I know I don't know what's going to happen, so I have to look at what's really going on. And I get to my opinion by pulling back further and further until I can't see anything small.
I pull back as far as I can because I want the big picture.
And the big picture is all about the major trend. If you're on the right side of the major trend, you can't get killed. You might take a few hits, here and there, but you make money. And while making money is great, it isn't everything.
There's something more, something bigger than making money…
It is not losing money, as in, not getting hit so hard that you're hurting real bad, or that you get killed and are out of the game totally.
That's never happened to me. I always make money, every year.
It's not that I don't have losing trades; I have plenty of those. But I make money because I mostly ride the big trends.
Usually, my losing trades are my more speculative trades, where I try and jump on a smaller counter-trend within the major trend.
For example, I see the big trend as positive, so I'm mostly long (I'm buying), but I might think a stock is prone to a sell-off, so I'll short it. Sometimes that's a huge winner, but sometimes I will lose on a play that is counter to the trend because the major trend eventually overwhelms everything else.
My point here is this…
The trend is your friend, but within the major trend there can be opportunities riding mini-trends going in the opposite direction. Just don't get greedy on those plays; the major trend will eventually consume most smaller counter-trending plays.
So, here's what I see, and here's my opinion about what I see.
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Five Savvy Ways to Conquer the Wall of Worry
If you like extreme risk and consider living on the edge to be "normal," today's column isn't for you.
Today I'm writing to the millions of investors who are completely terrified by the prospect of what's next and who simply want their faith restored – not to mention their investments.
To all of them I would say: You are not alone and you're not wrong to be apprehensive.
Our political situation is an embarrassing train wreck, our national debt looks like a one way trip to financial hell, housing remains in the dungeon, unemployment is unacceptably high and Europe…oh Europe.
It's nothing short of a gigantic wall of worry.
Plus, there have been so many attempts to "fix" things that I've lost count. Throwing good money after bad is a fool's game and one that will have very real and inevitable consequences.
So what should investors do?
The Fed's War on Capitalism
Here's how I see things. The "Whitewash Ministry" has basically five options:
- Repression
- Devaluation
- Austerity
- Deflation
- Inflation
You can forget the double "d's" – devaluation and deflation.
Even though both would be the proper way for free markets to bleed out the excesses of the past, they are essentially political nukes and nobody has the willpower to touch either one of them.
The third, austerity, is being tried but only halfheartedly. Our leaders have no idea what this actually means. Since they remain completely unaccountable, there is no true incentive.
Besides, large numbers of people have figured out it's easier to be on the dole than it is to actually work, so this is another disincentive for meaningful cuts in spending.
As for inflation, this too is officially a non-starter as long as interest rates are held near zero. Unofficially, it's a different story. Most investors I know are feeling the heat of 12% to 15% a year in their wallets.
That leaves option number one – repression.
You can call it what you want, but repression is really a fancy way of saying that our government is conducting punitive monetary policy.
While they mouth off about how they want to create jobs and take care of the middle class, in reality they're eviscerating it.
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Don’t Be A Wall Street Patsy
You want to know the truth? The truth is that Wall Street has stacked the deck against you.
That's why you need to understand how the game is played. Otherwise you'll end up a Wall Street patsy.
So, here's the truth along with some lessons that will help you play the game like a pro.
First, though, we'll need to debunk a few myths…
Let's start with the myth that the Street lowered brokerage charges for the benefit of retail investors. At one time, these fees used to be obscenely high and fixed.
But, on May 1, 1975, fixed commissions were abolished after brash upstarts like Charles Schwab and disgruntled investors decided to attack The Street's price-fixing schemes.
The negotiated commissions regime that followed lowered the cost of access to the stock market, essentially ushering in the era of the "individual investor."
The influx of these individual investors, many of whom didn't have enough money to create diversified portfolios, soon became a boon for mutual funds – which have since grown like weeds in an untended sod farm.
Wall Street Changed the Game
Since the commission business was no longer profitable, Wall Street moved its retail business to an "assets under management" model.
So instead of making money on commissions the game changed to gathering as many assets as you could into a retail investor's account and charging a fee to "manage" them; in other words, just watch them.
That's one of the reasons why Wall Street advocates a "buy and hold" strategy for retail investors. They don't want you to take those assets away from them.
It's the same thing with mutual funds.
And conveniently, if your broker puts you into mutual funds that are losers, it's not your broker's fault.
Now, it's the mutual fund manager's fault. That way the broker can't be blamed if your account loses money.
Instead, your broker can tell you, "Don't fire me, let's fire the mutual fund manager and let's find you a better fund to invest in. But, no matter what happens, we need to buy and hold and not try and time the market."
That's what retail investors are told to do over and over and over again.
But guess what? That's definitely not what Wall Street firms do.
In fact, while you're being told to buy and hold, exchange specialists, market-makers, hedge funds and every trading desk at every Wall Street bank and firm are busy trading.
Some individual investors began to see how Wall Street was really making its money and started trading themselves.
Of course, that only increased the competition for easy trades as more retail investors traded in and out of stocks.
To continue their advantage over the public, Wall Street fought to do away with the uptick rule. The rule was wiped out so traders could short sell any stock at any time.
But it's the big Wall Street players who benefit from the rule change because they can use their huge capital positions and work with each other to drive down stocks they have shorted.
Who gets hurt? The buy-and-hold retail investors who are told to buy more at lower prices are the ones who get fleeced.
And, who is selling to them?…
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The Markets or the Mattress: I Know Where My Money is Going
The next 1,000 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average in either direction are going to be determined by what happens in two cities thousands of miles from our own shores…
Athens and Berlin.
What's more, the risks associated with Europe's redemption, or its failure, are more concentrated now than they were before the crisis began.
There are two reasons: a) Europe won't help itself and b) Wall Street may still have $1 trillion or more in exposure to European problems.
What makes me crazy right now is that European chatter is what's driving the markets.
Every sound bite from Europe is critical these days. Not because there is anything relevant in the political babbling from financial ministers tasked with fixing this mess, but rather that there is a cascade of events that could take us in either direction.
Fix this mess and the markets will take off for a 1,000 point gain that will leave anybody who is on the sidelines hopelessly behind.
Fail and the markets could tank.
It certainly fits the pattern established in recent months. News leaks suggesting solutions have brought on rallies, while negative leaks have caused a ripple effect that has quickly dumped stocks into the hopper.
Yet, it's not really the numbers that matter at the moment – even with the Fed rumored to be considering another $1 trillion stimulus and reports that the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be seeking as much as $600 billion each.
No. The market swings we are seeing are all about confidence or, more specifically, the near complete lack thereof.
The Mattress vs. The Markets
A recent report from TrimTabs shows that checking and savings accounts attracted eight-times the money that stock, bond and mutual funds did from January to November 2011.
That is a whopping $889 billion that went under "the mattresses" versus only $109 billion that went into the markets.
In fact, CNBC is reporting that the pace of money headed for plain-Jane savings and checking accounts from September to November accelerated to nearly 13-times the average monthly flow rate of the preceding nine months from September to November.
What's significant about this is that the money has headed for the sidelines when the markets have rallied. Usually it's the other way around. Normally money floods into the markets when they move higher.
The other notable thing here is that, generally speaking, up days this year have had thinner volume than down days. This means that most investors just can't handle the swings. In other words, every time the markets dip, they're packing it in.
Pessimism is the Breeding Ground of Opportunity
Bottom line: Investors are making a gigantic mistake – especially those with a longer-term perspective.
The Gilded Age of Wall Street Remains Intact
For decades, Wall Street offered the allure of big league paydays and behind-the-scenes power.
But since the 2008 financial crisis there's been a growing sense – or even hope – that The Street's stride had been broken. After all, demand for a financial system overhaul, regulatory reform, and a crackdown on Wall Street pay must take some toll.
Not hardly. Wall Street hasn't changed its ways and it never will.
Take it from a man who has spent decades on The Street, seeing everything firsthand.
Money Morning Capital Wave Strategist and retired hedge-fund manager Shah Gilani says that in the short-term, firms will have to deal with new rules and slimmer paychecks, but ultimately, they will still find a way to prosper.
"The bloom is off the rose and Wall Street is showing its thornier side, but the Street is still paved with gold," said Gilani. "On any relative basis, unless you're a rock star, star athlete or Hollywood heavy, there's no place like Wall Street to make your fortune. That's not going to change any time soon."
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