thependulumswings

Friends

Today’s earnings releases produced a mixed bag of share
price reactions. Johnson & Johnson had a very nice earnings beat and for
the most part the stock reacted positively. United Healthcare had what looked like
a nice earnings scorecard but the shares, after rallying initially, spent the
day down significantly. Bank of America had a nice earnings beat, but one buoyed
by cost efficiency more than revenue growth. Nevertheless, the shares fell
early but recovered to end the day mainly unchanged. As I said, a very mixed
bag of results, and not all that surprising given the market action so far this
year.

As for stocks in general, for the day the Dow Jones
Industrial Average was up 67 points to close at 26,452. The S&P 500 was up
1 point to finish the day at 2,907. Gold was down $12 to trade at $1,279 per
ounce, while oil was up $.73 to trade at $64.13 per barrel WTI.

The earnings parade continues after the close, and over the
next 2 days, before we break for the holiday weekend on Friday. In the meantime
we’ll monitor the results and how the companies’ shares react in price. As seen
today, there is a lot of nuance with these earnings releases, and so much of
the stock price action is predicated on what type of move the shares have
experienced going into this earnings season. Stay tuned.

Have a nice evening everyone.

Jim