Thursday, November 21, 2024
For the second-straight trading session, market indexes fought off an early sag from a higher pre-market and closed into the green by the closing bell. This week has been a welcome one after last week’s trough — call it the hangover after the election results party. Investors aren’t exactly donning the lampshade again quite yet, but they’re feeling pretty refreshed.
The Dow gained +461 points for the session, +1.06%. The S&P 500 grew +38 points, +0.53%, while the Nasdaq was flat: +0.03%. Leading the way today was the small-cap Russell 2000 — with regional banks and other financials having a good day — +1.65% on the day. Bond yields buoyed slightly up to +4.428% on the 10-year and +4.355% on the 2-year.
Existing Home Sales, LEI Post Improved Numbers
Earlier this morning, after the market opened, we saw Existing Home Sales for October tick up to 3.96 million — still historically on the low end; this metric hasn’t been able to get much higher than +4.5% since the Fed started hiking interest rates — from a downwardly revised 3.83 million in September, which was the lowest print in the last 14 years. Expectations were for a slight improvement, and even with 7%+ mortgage rates, it’s nice to see sales of existing homes increase.
Leading Economic Indicators (LEI), also for October, were less bad than analysts had anticipated: -0.4% matched analyst expectations and just lower than the upwardly revised -0.3% for September. Manufacturer new orders was the leading negative contributor in this data. That said, the LEI continues to believe the overall U.S. economy is in good shape, not headed for an imminent recession.
Q3 Earnings Roundup: Ross Stores, The Gap
Ross Stores ROST was mixed in its Q3 earnings report after the closing bell this afternoon, with earnings of $1.48 per share a 9-cent beat over the Zacks consensus. Revenues, however, came in a bit short at $5.07 billion, down from the $5.15 billion analysts were expecting. Unseasonably warm weather put pressure on discretionary spending in the quarter, but investors were happy to bid up the stock +7% on the news in late trading.
Check out the updated Zacks Earnings Calendar here.
The Gap GAP stormed ahead with a big earnings beat — 72 cents per share versus 56 cents — on in-line revenues of $3.8 billion in the quarter, which were less than +1% year over year. The Gap signature stores performed the best, +3%, with Old Navy flat and Banana Republic a tad lower. Yet shares are +12% in today’s after-market ahead of the San Francisco retailer’s conference call.
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