This solid earnings season finally won out in Wednesday’s session… barely. The market has been focusing more on rising rates of late than on all the strong reports hitting the street. It felt like more of the same this morning, but a late-day surge helped two of the three major indices close on the plus side.
The Dow was stuck in a five-session losing streak as the opening bell rang this morning and then the index slipped another 200 points. However, the rebound kicked in late and ended the skid with a rise of 0.25% to 24,083.8. The S&P followed a similarly rocky road to gain 0.18% to 2639.4. But the NASDAQ couldn’t keep pace and finished lower by 0.05% to 7003.7.
The tech-laden index now has its own five-session losing streak as it continues to feel the heat from a pair of warnings last week on soft iPhone/smartphone sales. The NASDAQ may get a shot in the arm tomorrow, though, since Facebook beat on both the top and bottom lines after the bell today. The social media giant had been under intense pressure for mishandling user information during the presidential campaign, which saw founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress for several days earlier this month. Nevertheless, as of this writing, shares of FB are up about 7% afterhours.
The editors weren't in the mood to do much buying and selling today, but they had a lot to say about this frustrating market. When is this strong earnings season going to manifest itself in stock prices? Get a few opinions in the highlights section below:
Today's Portfolio Highlights:
Stocks Under $10:When Brian Bolan bought Intrepid Potash (IPI) back in August 2017, he was most impressed with its revenues of $43.9 million. Well, this leading producer of potash certainly didn’t let the editor down when it reported first-quarter total sales of $53. 2 million yesterday, which was much better than the previous year’s $48.7 million. Shares of IPI soared by more than 18% on Wednesday to give the portfolio the best-performing stock of the day. It’s the second-best mover over the past 30 days as well with a gain of more than 25%. By the way, Stocks Under $10also has THE BEST mover in the past month as HighPoint Resources Corp. (HPR) has jumped more than 32% in that time.
Large-Cap Trader: "Why did our Tech stocks get killed by the 10-year rates rising? The thinking out there must be that this will kill off the growth, and that will kill off the growth stock.
"Do I agree with that trader consensus -- on the effect of rising rates -- deflating U.S. GDP growth?
"Not yet.
"I would start to change my mind if we got above 3.5% on the 10-year; I would get much more worried at 4.0% on the 10-year."-- John Blank