Weekly Economic Update provided by Capstone Investment Financial Group
THE WEEK ON WALL STREET
Stocks meandered around a flatline in a busy week of corporate earnings, ending the trading week slightly lower.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.50%, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 was flat (+0.02%). The Nasdaq Composite index surrendered 0.39%. The MSCI EAFE index, which tracks developed overseas stock markets, rose
0.18%.1,2,3
Earnings Top Expectations
Last week was the biggest week of the first quarter’s earnings season with a third of S&P 500 companies reporting, including six of the largest companies.6
With expectations high, businesses generally topped Wall Street analysts’ estimates; Big Tech companies posted especially noteworthy earnings. Coming into last Friday, with 40% of S&P 500 index companies reporting,
earnings-per-share growth (EPS) is now estimated to be 29.3%, well ahead of the 12.2% EPS growth rate that analysts had expected at the start of the year.7