Wall Street Dropped At The Opening, But Recovered Again After It (April 27, 2009)

U.S. Stock market was opened lower due to investors' worry about swine flu. But the market increased again immediately after General Motor's plans to cut its jobs, Qualcomm Inc fiscal second-quarter and Verizon first quarter circulated in Wall Street.

The swine flu's virus was estimated as the cause of more than 100 deaths in Mexico. U.S. and Canada were also shocked by that virus, but not as severe as in Mexico. Beside that, in Europe, Spain also said that its country was infected.

After focused on the swine flu issue, investors were switched their focus on GM and technology sector. General Motor said that it will cut 21.000 jobs by next year and eliminate Pontiac. Qualcomm announced its first quarter loss ($289 million) but it raised its full-year revenue target. Verizon said that it earned $3.21 billion (58 cents per share), higher than its last year first quarter earnings. These news have lifted Wall Street again...

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Stock Market Rose Due To Better-Than-Expected Companies' Earnings (April 24, 2009)

Wall Street was opened higher after many companies posted their better-than-expected earnings result. The companies are Ford Motor Co., American Express, and Amazon.com. Another news is the government have conducted stress tests to 19 financial institutions and announced its result.

Ford reported its first-quarter loss of $1.4 billion. Their operating cash flow were down around $3.7 billion. This is far less than their fourth quarter operating cash flow (down around $7.2 billion).

American Express reported its first-quarter profit of around $361 million (31 cents per share). This result made the bank became the biggest percentage gain today.

Amazon reported its earnings per share of 41 cents. And its revenue grew 18% to $4.9 billion.

After conducted stress tests, the government said that most banks are currently well capitalized. But the banks need to hold a substantial amount of capital above regulatory requirements to survive if the recession becoming worse.

Beside that, the other economic datas are the 0.6 percent drop in March new-home sales, and the announcement that March durable-goods orders fell 0.8 percent.

Dow Jones closed at 8,075 (up 117,95), Nasdaq at 1,694 (up 42,08) and S&P 500 at 866.

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Wall Street Turned Back Due To Companies' Good Earnings (April 22, 2009)

The stock market rose at the opening due to companies' good earnings. The companies' report have ditched the investors' concern about Morgan Stanley's disappointing report. The companies are Yahoo Inc., Boeing Co., Well Fargo & Co., McDonald's Corp. and AT&T Inc.

Yahoo's first quarter earnings fell to $118 million (dropped 78%), and its decision to remove only 700 of its employees has increased the company's stock price.

Boeing's earnings fell to $610 million (86 cents per share), wheras the company earned $1.21 billion at last year's first quarter.

Well Fargo reported that they earned $2.38 billion (56 cents per share), higher than its last year first quarter earnings $2 billion.

McDonald's announced that its profit rose to $979.5 million (87 cents per share), higher than its last year's first quarter profit ($946.1 million / 81 cents per share).

AT&T announced that it earned of around $3.1 billion (53 cents per share) down 10 percent from its last year's first quarter earnings ($3.5 billion / 57 cents per share).

Almost all of the above companies' earnings exceed the analysts' estimates, causin the stock market has increased, so it giving rise to the stock market.

One of today's negative news is about Morgan Stanley's miserable first quarter report, where the bank lost $ 578 million (57 cents per share). This made the company's stock price fell 69 cents (2.8 percent), to $23.96 in morning trading.

News on this day gave one more evidence that at least the companies has started to showed improvement again..

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Wall Street Dropped Again At The Opening (April 21, 2009)

U.S. stock market dropped again for the second day due to the companies' miserable first quarter earnings.

Caterpillar announced its first quarter loss of around $ 112 million (19 cents per share). This was its first loss since 1992, whereas the company earned $922 million ($1.45 per share) on its last year's first quarter.

Merck announced its first quarter profit of around $1.46 billion (67 cents per share). For information, its last year's first quarter profit was $3.33 billion ($1.52 per share).

But despite experienced a drop at the opening, now the stock market have increased again (at the time this article was written)..

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Wall Street Declined At The Opening (April 20, 2009)

U.S. stock market were opened lower although there is no significant bad news, even some good news didn't make any increase to the market. Probably this drop was caused by profit taking made by investors.

Some news that circulated today are the announcement of Bank of America's first quarter result. Bank of America announced a profit of around $ 2.81 billion (44 cents per share), which exceeded analysts' expectations (4 cents per share). But nevertheless, their loans problem were also bounced, causing the bank stock prices fell.

On the other side, Oracle Co. announced that they will buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion. Previously, IBM also expressed its intention to buy Sun Microsystems. But IBM did not give further confirmation about its plan.
PepsiCo also announced a bid to purchase the Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas for $ 6 billion, which aimed to cut expenditure, in order to become more efficient, and to control its distribution..

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Wall Street Soared At The Opening! (April 17th, 2009)

Wall Street stock prices have finally increased at the opening. Investors became optimistic after Citigroup and General Electric reported its better--than-expected first quarter earnings.

Citigroup announced that the company experienced losses of around $ 18 cents per share, lower than analysts' expectation (analysts expected that the bank will lose around $ 34 cents a share). This losses is much smaller than one year ago, when Citigroup lose around $ 1.03 per its share.

Beside that, the stock market was also affected by General Electric's first quarter report. The company said that its profit fell 36 percent to $ 2.74 billion (26 cents per share), but this report is still better than analysts' expectation (analysts expected GE will take profit of around 21 cents per share).

These were good news and although slowly, but the recession would be ended soon with the companies' improvement. Stay alert and always think positively!

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Many Economic Data Mixed Wall Street (April 16th, 2009)

Stock market was increased when opened, but decrease again now. Both of good and bad news have affected Wall Street. Some of them were about jobless report, housing starts, and JP Morgan Chase's first quarter report.

The Labor Department said that this week the unemployment claims dropped to a seasonally adjusted 610.000, and this was below the analysts' expectations. This unexpected result was indicated that the job sector has experienced an improvement. But on the other side, the new housing starts met a sharp decline. The Commerce Department said that housing starts fell 10.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 510,000 units in March.

But behind all the not-good-enough news above, there is always a good enough news. JP Morgan Chase reported its $2.14 billion profit on record revenue of $26.9 billion (from January until March). Although these profit are not as much as in last year, but it showed that bank sector have had their lives again..

So stay alert and always think positive!

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Bad News Shook Wall Street (April 15th, 2009)

U.S. stock market was opened lower after many negative economic news occured on Wall Street.

Until now, here are the latest economic data in U.S:

- The Labor Department said that the Consumer Price Index fell 0.1 percent in March. Whereas, previously the Consumer Price Index increased around 0.4 percent in February.

- The Producer Price sank around 3.5 percent in March. This was the biggest decline in producer price since 1950.

- Energy Prices fell about 3.0 percent in March. Previously, the energy prices were increased around 3.3 percent in February.

- Core prices, exclude food and energy items increased 0.2 percent in March..

Stay alert and let's wait for the other news..

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Wall Street Slipped After Many Economic Data (April 14th, 2009)

U.S. stock market experienced a decline at the opening. This decrease was caused by some bad news that appeared on Wall Street. Some of them are the decline in retail sales, wholesale prices, and in auto sales.

The Commerce Department said that retail sales declined about 1.1 percent in March, lower than the analyst prediction that the retail sales will increase 0.3 percent.

In addition, the Labor Department said that wholesale prices also experienced a decline about 1.2 percent in March. The decline was caused by a drop in the cost of gasoline, energy products and foods.

And the worse, the auto sales declined around 2.3 percent in March, indicated that the automotive companies still face its difficult period.

Although the news is not good enough today, but Ben Bernanke still said that these are signs that the recession will ended. Let's wait and stay alert..

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The Stock Market Tried To Maintain Its Position (April 8th, 2009)

At the opening, Wall Street have increased due to the announcement of the U.S. Treasury Department's plans to extend its $700 billion aid to insurance companies.

The insurance companies are eligible to receive the TARP funds because of their bank holding company status.

But beside of this increase, investors must remain cautious about the other news that showed a decline. The Commerce Department said that February's wholesale inventories dropped about 1.5 percent. This was the steepest drop during the last 17 years. Beside that, news that also attracted the investors' attention is the decline of oil prices.

Some analysts said that Wall Street will face a longer bearish sentiment than we have expected. So we must be more cautious..

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Wall Street Declined Again (April 7th, 2009)

Wall street experienced its second day's decline caused by investor's fears about the banks' balance sheet and some of the first quarter's bad report.

In addition, the International Monetary Fund also announced its forecast that the bank's toxic assets could increase to $ 4 trillion. This news has increased the investors' concern about the stock market. Beside that, this news has also increased the investors' worry that the government aid that aimed to raise the banks' loan might not work.

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Wall Street Slipped At The Opening (April 3rd, 2009)

U.S. stock market declined at the the opening, caused by the news about the increase of the unemployment rate. The U.S. jobless rate increased to 8.5 percent in March, where around 663,000 jobs were eliminated by the employers. This was the highest jobless rate since late 1983.

The news about the unemployment rate was indeed quite bad, and this showed that the recession in United States have a very bad impact on the jobs market. But according to some economists, the report in the next months would be not worse than the report in March. Hopefully this opinion indicated that the market has found its true bottom, and the recession would end in 2009 as has been said by Ben Bernanke..

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FASB Gived Facility To Banks In Applying Mark-To-Market Accounting (April 2nd, 2009)

Wall Street jumped sharply after the Financial Accounting Standards Board gived a relief to the banks in applying mark-to-market accounting to their toxic assets. With this rules' relaxation, the troubled banks' balance sheet would be potentially repaired.

Beside that, another thing that also increased Wall Street was a news about the G20 leaders' agreement to provide additional funds of around $ 1 trillion to the IMF and other global institutions, such as the World Bank. The funds injection was aimed to speed up the global economic recovery.

Wow! These news were very spectacular and made Dow Jones jumped up to over 8000 points at the time this article was written. Hopefully, the world economy can recover as quick as we expected. Stay alert!

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Wall Street Slipped On The Beginning of The 2nd Quarter (April 1st, 2009)

Wall Street began the 2nd Quarter of 2009 with a drop that caused of the conflicts occured one day before the meeting of worlds' leader in London. One of the conflicts is that the demonstrans attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland's office because the bank gave annual pension of around 700,000 pounds to its former boss. The investors also worried about the U.S. job cut report that will be announced by the Labor Department on Friday.

But on the other side, the pending home sales were up about 2.1 percent to 82.1 in February. Previously, January pending home sales were still at the lowest spot (on 80.4). Even though the housing sales were still depressed, but this increase indicated that this sector has experienced the resurrection.

Although experienced decline at the opening, but the Dow Jones has increased again now (when this report was written).

Let's hope that tommorow's meeting of G20 leaders will generate good results for the world's economy...

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