While you were sleeping: US stocks steady ahead of reporting season
Wall Street is anticipating a substantial lift in corporate profits.
Shares of energy companies and industrials rose but others lagged as Wall Street looked ahead to corporate-earnings season.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 1.9 points, or less than 0.1%, to 20,658.02. The S&P 500 gained 0.1% to 2357.16 after the index ended last week slightly lower, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.1% to 5880.93.
Oil producer Hess was among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500, rising 4%, while construction-equipment maker Caterpillar led the Dow with a gain of 1.7%.
US oil futures rose 1.6% at $US53.08 a barrel, the latest advance tied to last week’s US airstrike in Syria and the civil conflict in oil-rich Libya.
Investors are also contending with a number of crosscurrents as they consider whether US stocks can push back toward the record highs reached in early March.
Since then, however, the Dow has fallen by about 2%.
Reporting season
Investors are looking for solid company results to propel stocks higher in the new reporting season. S&P 500 companies are forecast to report earnings growth of around 9% from the first quarter last year.
“Typically there is some upward drift once earnings are actually starting to get reported, so we may actually see double-digit earnings growth from a year ago for the first quarter,” said Jurrien Timmer, director of global macro at Fidelity, told the Wall Street Journal. “That’s a pretty solid underpinning.”
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note fell to 2.361%, after rising during choppy trade to 2.375% on Friday.
Gold prices fell 0.3% to $US1251.10 an ounce.
The Stoxx Europe 600 was little changed. French stocks declined amid signs of renewed investor jitters ahead of the country’s presidential elections.
Shares in Australian miner BHP Billiton added 4.6% after activist investor Elliott Management said it had written a letter urging the company to spin off its US petroleum interest and unify its dual UK-Australia structure to unlock shareholder value.
Nevil Gibson
Tue, 11 Apr 2017
Tue, 11 Apr 2017
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
While you were sleeping: US stocks steady ahead of reporting season
66250