23-Apr-09
Thursday’s Market Recap (04/23/09)
The markets were up today, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was rose 0.89%. The NASDAQ was closed up 0.37% ending the day at 1652.21, while the S&P was up o.99% to close at 851.92. The yield of the 10-year is currently at 2.921% as the price of the treasury rose. Gold and crude contracts were up settling at $906.60 and $49.62 respectively.
Shares of Apple [AAPL: 125.40, +3.89 (+3.20%)] were up over 3% today after it reported earnings after hours yesterday. The price jumped today, as many investors saw the strength of Apple as they reported an EPS of $1.33 on revenue of $8.16 billion as opposed to the analyst’s estimated $1.09 EPS on revenue of $8 billion. Net income was up over 20% this quarter as the Cupertino, Calif. company reported an increase in the sales of iPhones and iPods this quarter. Apple saw their profit margin increase to 36.4% as they benefited from a decline in the commodity prices of key components for their products. In negative news, Apple reported that sales of Mac computers declined in this quarter compared to the quarter the year prior, as the economy has had a negative impact across the whole PC industry. Going forward, Apple has projected revenues to increase next quarter with a slight decline in earnings from the same quarter the year prior. Apple is looking to continue its growth with its iPhone and take away market share in its desktop and laptop operations.
In other earnings news today, ConocoPhillips [COP: 39.93, +1.87 (+4.91%)] reported earnings of $0.56 a share, or $840 million, as opposed to $2.62 a share as opposed to the same period a year before. Net income for the oil producer and refiner fell 80%, largely affected from the sharp decline in oil prices. Revenue fell from $54.9 billion from $30.7billion, despite production volume increasing due to an increase in production sharing contracts and an increase in projects in Russia, Vietnam, China, Canada, Norway, and the United Kingdom. ConocoPhillips sees an increase in the production in 2009 compared to 2008, with exploration expenses estimated to be $325 million in the second quarter. Conoco has been hurt along with the other big oil and gas giants Exxon Mobil [XOM: 65.71, +0.96 (+1.48%)] and Chevron [CVX: 65.53, +1.78 (+2.79%)] as oil prices have gone down and demand has fallen.
In economic news, it was reported that existing home sales had dropped in March, as opposed to existing home sales rising 5.1% in February. Existing home sales were down -3% to an annual rate of 4.57 million, with the majority coming as a result of foreclosures and short sales. Prices on homes also continued to fall as the median home price fell 12.4% to $175,000; this coupled with declining mortgage rates has increased the affordability of homes. Realtors and housing companies also hope to see an increase in demand, driven by a tax incentive of $8,000 dollars that Obama plans on giving to first time home builders. In other economic news, this concerning jobs, it was reported that last week, those seeking state unemployment benefits rose and those receiving unemployment benefits was at a record high. The Labor Department reported unemployment of 6,137,000 as they said that that the unemployment rate for workers rose to 4.6%. Some economists believe that the economy is regaining its footing and that consumer spending and housing maybe stabilizing. Many economists are closely watching the weekly unemployment numbers seeking to see some indication here on the future of things to come.
Check back tomorrow for the Friday market recap.
- Matt Shannon
Disclosure: The Fund the author is associated with is long XOM.
Posted at 16:11 in External Blog | Permalink | Top
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