Stocks Closed Higher Yesterday On Earnings And Trade Deal Optimism
RJ Hamster
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Profit from the Pros
By Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President
Stocks Closed Higher Yesterday On Earnings And Trade Deal Optimism
Stocks closed higher yesterday as better-than-expected earnings continue to roll in, and trade deal optimism.
President Trump yesterday announced the first trade deal since he paused reciprocal tariffs last month. (This is the first of what is expected to be many in the coming weeks.)
The first one was with the U.K. Amongst the details, it reduces auto tariffs coming into the U.S. from 27.5% to 10%. It removes the 25% tariff on U.K. steel and aluminum. And it opens up access for beef and agricultural products coming from the U.S. However, the 10% base tariffs on many other goods will remain. As will many of the tariffs the U.K. already has placed on the U.S. But the onerous reciprocal tariffs that were previously announced, then suspended, have been removed.
There were no grand marquee names reporting yesterday like we have seen in the last couple of weeks. In fact, with nearly 85% of the S&P 500 companies having already reported, earnings season is winding down. But so far, it has been another better-than-expected showing. And Q1 S&P 500 earnings growth is pacing at a 12.2%.
Additionally, looking forward, estimate revisions for the tech sector have begun moving up with Q2 at 12.8% projected earnings growth, up from 10.2% just a few weeks ago.
And looking further out, earnings estimates for the whole of the S&P look excellent as well Q2 projected to be up 6.4%, Q3 up 12.6%, and Q4 up 6.6%.
Today we’ll get another 176 companies on deck to report.
In other news, yesterday’s Weekly Jobless Claims fell by -13,000 to 228,000.
And Wholesale Inventories rose 0.4% vs. last month’s 0.5% and views for the same.
Not much in the way of economic reports out today.
But we’ll hear from a host of Fed policymakers including Michael Barr, John Williams, Adriana Kugler, Thomas Barkin, Austan Goolsbee, Christopher Weller, and Beth Hammack as they speak at their respective engagements throughout the day.
This comes on the heels of Wednesday’s FOMC Announcement where the Fed left rates unchanged due to uncertainty surrounding tariffs and the possible impact they could have on inflation and the economy. Nonetheless, the Fed still expects to cut interest rates two times this year (presumably by 25 basis points each). And the CME’s FedWatch tool places a 70.8% likelihood that they begin cutting again at their July 30 meeting.
The key takeaway from the meeting is that the Fed feels good enough about the economy where it can afford to wait and see what impact the tariffs have. In the meantime, the Fed statement said, “economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace.”
While they acknowledge that “risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen,” none of that has been reflected in the recent data. Last week’s employment report came in better than expected. Q1’s GDP estimate, when adjusting for the surge of likely one-time imports to beat the implementation of tariffs, saw core GDP grow. And the latest PCE report showed inflation easing.
With one more day to go this week, the major indexes are either already in the green for the week or just a few ticks away from it. And it won’t take much to get them all in the plus column. If so, that would make it the 3rd up week in a row for the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq. And the 5th up week in a row for the small-cap Russell 2000 and the mid-cap S&P 400.
Best,
Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research
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