Heavy Q4 Reporting Ahead of State of the Union Address
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Morning pre-market trading is in the green again this morning, after a mostly up day overseas while we were sleeping. Plenty of new Q4 earnings reports are hitting the tape, and these follow yesterday afternoon’s results from Google parent Alphabet GOOGL, which were good overall but left some questions regarding how much the company is currently spending.
Trade Balance data remains delayed following 5 weeks of a partial government shutdown; after the opening bell, we see two main services reads: PMI Services and ISM Non-Manufacturing for January. Last month we saw these figures reach 54.2 and 57.6%, respectively.
What’s most anticipated today has nothing directly to do with stock market activity: the State of the Union address from President Trump, itself delayed a week following the government shutdown. Investors will be playing close attention to the president’s comments on taxes, spending and congressional harmony (or lack thereof).
After regular-day trading is over today, we expect more quarterly earnings reports from companies like Walt Disney DIS, Skyworks Solutions SWKS and Snap, Inc. SNAP. Ahead of the opening bell today, we see lots of new reads from companies across a wide spectrum of sectors:
Ralph Lauren RL reported a solid quarter this morning, putting up $2.32 per share which easily surpassed the $2.15 expected. Revenues of $1.73 billion outperformed estimates by 3.6%. The apparel retailer has not missed quarterly earnings estimates since Q4 2014 — exactly four years ago. Ahead of Tuesday’s open, shares have rocketed up more than 7% following the earnings release. For more on RL’s earnings, click here.
British oil major BP BP posted big numbers for its most recent quarter: $1.04 in American Depositary Shares (ADS) on $76.9 billion in sales were both way up over expectations. Its Upstream business has brought much more oil online over the past two years, while Downstream business grew 68% year over year. Shares are up 3% so far in today’s pre-market. For more on BP’s earnings, click here.
MedTech company Becton, Dickinson BDX came in-line on both top and bottom lines this morning, putting up $2.70 per share on $4.16 billion in revenues (this number was actually down 0.1% from projections). All major segments were up in the quarter, but nothing particularly surprised by an outperformance. Shares are flat ahead of the open. For more on BDX’s earnings, click here.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
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