Dow Holds Near Record, PayPal Spikes — and What Else Is Happening in the Stock Market Today
Facebook is the first of the U.S. tech giants to report earnings this week.
Denis Charlet/AFP via Getty Images
The stock market was holding steady on Monday, as investors looked ahead to a wave of corporate earnings this week.
Shortly after the open, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 18 points, or 0.1%, after the index climbed 73 points to a record Friday. The S&P 500
—which remained near an all-time high set last week—was little changed, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.2%.
“Futures are slightly higher following a quiet weekend and ahead of the most important week of earnings season,” wrote Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research.
This week, 164 components of the S&P 500 index, including 10 of the 30 components of the Dow, will report results. These include some of the largest U.S. technology companies—Facebook (ticker: FB), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN)—alongside General Electric (GE), Boeing (BOE), General Motors (GM), Caterpillar (CAT), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Visa (V), and others.
In the next two weeks, more than half of the index’s market capitalization will report earnings, according to Credit Suisse.
Investors seized on strong corporate earnings last week to help markets shake off a funk that had weighed on stocks for much of the prior month. Roughly 85% of the companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations, compared with the five-year average of 76%, according to Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank.
The aggregate earnings result on the S&P 500 has beaten expectations by 10%, according to Credit Suisse.
Overseas, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index ended just above flat, and London’s FTSE 100 was 0.3% higher.
All eyes will be on Facebook after shares in social-media peer Snap (SNAP) tumbled 26.6% Friday, pressuring Facebook stock, which fell 5.1%. Snap earnings showed an unexpectedly large impact to its advertising business, blamed in part on privacy changes made by Apple to its mobile operating system. The same changes could hurt Facebook.
Earnings are getting all the attention now, but they won’t be for long. The monetary policy body of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), will meet on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3, when markets expect to see the central bank announce that it will begin tapering its program of monthly asset purchases.
Here are six stocks on the move Monday:
Tesla (TSLA) stock was rising 5.1% after reports that Hertz Global Holdings (HTZZ) is looking to purchase 100,000 Tesla electric vehicles.
Kimberly-Clark (KMB) stock was falling 4.6% after the company reported a profit of $1.62 a share, missing estimates of $1.65 a share, on sales of $5.01 billion, above expectations for $4.99 billion.
Restaurant Brands International (QSR) stock fell 1.7% after the company reported a profit of 76 cents a share, beating estimates of 74 cents a share, on sales of $1.5 billion, below expectations for $1.52 billion.
Five9 (FIVN) stock rose 1.6% after getting upgraded to Overweight from Sector Weight at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
PayPal (PYPL) was 4.7% higher after the payments giant said over the weekend that it wouldn’t pursue an acquisition of social network Pinterest (PINS). Pinterest fell 14%.
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