Loading...
Symbols:
Authors:

News That Moved Friday's Market

by: SA Editor Roy Mehta January 18, 2008    
Roy Mehta

SA Editor
Roy Mehta

About this author:
Become a Contributor Submit an Article
  • Font Size:
  • Print

U.S. Markets

Dow -59.9 (-0.49%)
Nasdaq -6.9 (-0.29%)
S&P 500 -8.1 (-0.60%)

News That Moved the Market

Strong Earnings Not Enough to Keep Market Afloat. Despite strong earnings from General Electric (GE, +3.3%) and IBM (IBM, +2.0%), the market was not able to finish in positive territory. Investors liked that GE reaffirmed its 2008 EPS growth of at least 10% and IBM's announcement that 2008 EPS growth would come in at 15%-16%, beating expectations. Markets opened up, but gave up gains in a volatile session.

Bush Calls for Economic Stimulus. Bush, in a prepared speech, talked about implementing a new stimulus plan that would provide broad-based tax relief and amount to about 1% of GDP or about $140 billion. Many investors were disappointed that more details were not shared, though the amount of information given was about as much economists expected.

Consumer Sentiment Rebounds. Markets did get a brief boost from the University of Michigan's preliminary consumer-sentiment survey for January which jumped to 80.5 in January from the 75.5 reading in December.

Sprint Plunges. Sprint Nextel (S, -24.8%) fell hard after a wireless subscriber report sparked concerns about the company's market share. Sprint also announced it would cut 4,000 jobs and shutter 8% of its retail stores because of heavy competition.

AMD Beats. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, +11.5%) announced fourth-quarter results that beat analysts' expectations. The company showed progress toward its goal of breaking even in the second half of 2008.

Tomorrow


Markets will be closed Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Related Articles

This article has 1 comment:

  •  
    Jan 19 10:56 AM
    All he did was rehash old new making no inferances. If GE's growth is only 3 or6 or even 10% then at a P/E of 20 means that it is overpriced. The same is true for IBM

    Aubie Baltin
    Reply
More by SA Editor Roy Mehta

Investment Resources
Money Management 

Research 

Seeking Alpha provides these ads as a service to its leading contributors
Articles on related themes
Market Outlook 

Today's Market 

News Briefs 

Economy