Stock Market News for February 2, 2010 - Market News
Stocks started a new month on a solid footing as encouraging economic data and a strong earnings report from Exxon Mobil bolstered investors’ appetite for riskier assets. Although Friday’s impressive GDP report had given some boost to wavering sentiments, it failed to stem the sell-off as investors scrutinised the statement for concrete signs of an economic rebound.
Yesterday, strength in natural resource shares helped equity markets in their northward journey, even as all ten S&P industry sectors notched up gains during the session. The broad-based DJ-UBS commodity index rose 1.2%, as gold prices climbed $21.20, or 1.9%, to $1104.30, reversing their recent lackadaisical performance. Crude prices also gained, advancing 2.1% to $74.43. And as investors appeared more sanguine about the recovery, the CBOE Vix, "fear factor" index eased 8.3% to 22.59. Volume on NYSE remained low as only 1.038 billion shares traded and advancing shares outpaced declining issues by a four-to-one margin.
Monday's session saw the blue-chip Dow average rallying 118 points, with NASDAQ up 1.1% to 2171, and the S&P500 jumping 1.4% to 1,089. Strength in shares was broad based with only two of the DJIA thirty components ending the day in the red, with shares of 3M (NYSE:MMM) and Disney (NYSE:DIS) both ending down a modest 0.1%.
Alcoa (NYSE:AA) led the DJIA higher, jumping 5.0%, followed by a 3.2% advance in DuPont (NYSE:DD), reflecting strength in material stocks. ExxonMobil’s (NYSE:XOM) estimate-topping numbers helped the shares in company advance 2.7%, with Chevron (NYSE:CVX) shares rising 2.0%. ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) reported fourth-quarter numbers of $1.27 a share, compared with estimates of $1.19, despite refining losses and a 23% overall profit decline. A number of analyst upgrades sent tech shares up 1.6%. Outlook on the semiconductor industry was also lifted and individual upgrades were issued on Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) and Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL).
Meanwhile, problems of rising deficits worldwide and debt issues continue to give investors jitters. Perhaps, those issues play foremost in the mind of President Obama, as he releases a current year deficit expected to have touched a record $1.6 trillion, even though US credit ratings have yet to come under scrutiny. This morning's surprise announcement from the Australian Central Bank to hold interest rates steady at 3.75% versus an expected hike to 4.00%, also included its concerns over China monetary tightening and escalating sovereign debt issues.
Also reporting are counts of vehicle sales for January, expected to indicate market share gains for Ford (NYSE:F) and General Motors (NYSE:GM) on the back of Toyota's (NYSE:TM) recent, pedal-driven recall. Consensus estimates call for a drop in January vehicle sales to 8.50 million from the prior month's 8.63 million level.
Meanwhile, earnings reports continue in full swing with results expected from Cummins (NYSE:CUM), D R Horton (NYSE:DHI), Emerson Electric (NYSE:EMR), Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO), MetLife (NYSE:MET), News Corp (NYSE:NWS), Pepsi Bottling (NYSE:PBG), Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW), UPS (NYSE:UPS), and Whirlpool (NYSE:WHR).
The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.
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