All indications continue to point to more upside for a stock market
already trading at 2009 highs. Stock futures did pare gains just
slightly in the wake of mixed economic data. Still, futures have
maintained moderate gains throughout pre-market trading owed to some
favorable earnings from industrial heavy-hitters Caterpillar (
CAT) and
DuPont (
DD). Tech shares continue to get a lift from evening results
issued by Apple (
AAPL) and Texas Instruments (
TXN).
On the economic front, new construction on U.S. housing units was
essentially flat in September at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of
590,000, as a big drop in multifamily units was offset by an increase
in starts of single-family homes, the Commerce Department said,
according to MarketWatch. Building permits for single-family homes
dropped 3% to a 450,000 rate.
Also reported, producer prices declined by a deeper-than-expected
0.6% last month, driven primarily by lower energy costs. The core PPI,
which strips out volatile food and energy prices, fell 0.1%, not the
0.1% gain that Wall Street expected.
Earnings news centered on tech shares and major industrials.
Apple (
AAPL) continues its evening advance. AAPL reported Q4 revs
of $9.87 bln, well ahead of the analyst mean of $9.2 bln on Thomson
Reuters. EPS was $1.82 per share, better than the Street view of $1.42
per share, if comparable.
Texas Instruments (
TXN) is firmer. TXN, in last evening's
extended-hours, reported Q3 EPS of $0.42 vs $0.43 a year earlier and
topping the Thomson Reuters mean analyst estimate for $0.39. Revenue of
$2.88 billion is down 15%. The Street expected $2.82 billion.
Yahoo! (
YHOO) is due with its Q3 results after the bell tonight,
and analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are expecting the company to
report a profit of $0.07 per share on revenue of $1.12 billion.
DuPont (
DD) reports Q3 EPS of $0.45 vs $0.40 a year earlier, which
included a $0.16 per share charge for hurricane damage.
