Summary:
- Mixed trade in US indices with US100 lower and US30 rising
- Ford and Twitter both surge after earnings release
- Alphabet and Amazon to report after the closing bell
US stock indices are trading in a mixed fashion today with the US30 rising back near its all-time high but the US100 is a laggard. All together this means the US500 is little changed with the earnings season now in full swing and some sizable moves seen in individual stocks.
The US30 is rising today with the benchmark trading close to its all-time high of 23434. Source: xStation
The US100 is lower on the day and has drifted down after making an all-time high last week. Source: xStation
Two shares that have reported today are Ford and Twitter with both shares rising since their respective releases ahead of the opening bell. Ford recorded earnings per share of $0.43 vs an expected $0.32 as well as revenue of $36.5B vs $32.8B forecast. The release saw a positive open for the stock with a sizable gap higher but there has since been some selling back. Price has traded in a relatively narrow range form 11.90 to 12.45 in recent weeks and after having a look at the upper end of the range early on, the market has now settled back towards the middle.
Ford moved towards the upper bound of its recent range shortly after the open but has since fallen back towards midrange. Source: xStation
The move in Ford is relatively small compared to the one seen in Twitter with the latter rising by some 15% after announcing the firm was close to being profitable for the first time. The social media firm added 4M new monthly active users in the third quarter, which was well above the prior quarter when this metric stayed flat. Total users have now hit 330M. The stock has risen above the 19 handle for the first time since July and the large gap lower seen back then has finally been closed. The 2017 peak of 20.88 is now not too far out of reach and could be a level to keep an eye on going forward.
Twitter’s shares have jumped sharply higher following an upbeat earnings release. Source: xStation
After the bell Tech heavyweights Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Amazon are both set to report and given their market cap significant moves in their shares could have an impact on the US100.
US pending home sales for September hit a 3-year low with the index now down 3.5% fom a year ago. The rising rate environment appears to be weighing on the housing market with pending home sales on an annual basis now having fallen for 5 of the past 6 months.