The stock market in the United States declined except the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), up by 0.10% today.
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The markets were negatively impacted by the poor performance of equities in the energy sector as oil prices reached a three-year low at $75.84 per barrel in New York.
In a telephone interview with Bloomberg, Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities commented, “Look at the price of oil way down—that tells you everything you need to know. There might be some important things that come out of the election, but none of them will be bigger than the momentum from earnings and the impact that the price of oil will have on market sentiment.”
The Department of Commerce reported that factory orders fell 0.6% in September, which is in line with the expectations of economists. A separate data showed that the U.S. trade deficit increased in September as exports weakened from a record. The agency reported that the trade gap climbed 7.6% to $43.03 billion in September.
[drizzle]Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial said, “We expect a stronger dollar and weaker growth abroad, most notably in Europe, will take a greater toll on the trade balance and overall growth in the economy.”
Economist said the trade data has little impact on the financial markets in the United States, but the concerns regarding the slowing global demand resulted to the decline of Brent crude oil prices.
U.S. Markets
- Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) – 17,383.84 (+0.10%)
- S&P 500- 2,012.10 (-0.28%)
- NASDAQ- 4,623.64 (-0.33%)
- Russell 2000- 1,164.90 (-0.45%)
European Markets
- EURO STOXX 50 Price EUR- 3,034.24 (-1.56%)
- FTSE 100 Index- 6453.97 (-0.52%)
- Deutsche Borse AG German Stock Index DAX- 9,166.47 (-0.92%)
Asia-Pacific Markets
- Nikkei 225- 16,862.47 (+2.73%)
- Hong Kong Hang Seng Index- 23,845.66 (-0.29%)
- Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index- 2,513.17 (+0.02%)
Stocks in Focus
The stock price of Sprint Corporation (NYSE:S) declined more than 16% to $5.18 per share after the company announced its decision to cut 2,000 jobs to reduce cost. The wireless carrier also reported $192 million in operating losses for its second quarter fiscal 2014.
Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) declined more than 8% to $1,097.70 per share after the company issued lower than expected earnings outlook for the fourth quarter. The online travel company expected to generate earnings in the range of $9.40 to $10.10 per share in the fourth quarter compared with that consensus estimate of $10.97 per share.
The shares of Michael Kors Holdings Ltd (NYSE:KORS) dropped more than 8% to $71.42 per share after reporting comparable store sales growth that missed the estimates of Wall Street analysts. The company said its comparable store sales rose 16.4%, lower than the 19% growth expected by analysts. Michael Kors reported net income of $207 million or $1.00 in earnings per share and $1.1 billion in revenue.
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