A parliamentary vote in Britain on Thursday ended with the government declining to join the US’ efforts to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. While the US could still act alone, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Obama administration was looking to act within an international coalition.
In other news around the markets:
- Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the parliament on Friday saying that the rupee’s recent slide is part of a necessary adjustment. He said that although the currency’s fall is concerning, it will likely help boost exports in the coming month. He also confirmed that he was not considering the use of capital controls and pledged to contain the fiscal deficit at 4.8 percent in 2014.
- In a phone conference on Friday, China’s foreign minister said there should be no UN security council until the chemical probe in Syria was complete.
- Amid growing worries about its exposure to banks, General Electric GE has begun the proceedings to divest its consumer-finance business. People close to the matter have said that an IPO could be on the agenda later in the year.
- Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. has taken most of the blame for last week’s three hour market outage. The company admitted fault in a detailed summary of the exchange’s preliminary findings. However, Nasdaq isn’t accepting total responsibility, the company insisted that problems with a NYSE Euronext electronic platform contributed to the market’s breakdown.
After a month long selloff, Asian markets were mostly positive on Friday. The South Korean KOSPI was up 0.99 percent and the Australian ASX 200 gained 0.84 percent. The Shanghai composite had limited gains with only a 0.05 percent increase and the Shenzhen composite was down 0.93 percent. The Japanese NIKKEI index also fell, losing 0.53 percent.
European Markets
European markets were quiet as investors remained cautious. The FTSE was up 0.08 percent and the STOXX 600 gained just 0.04 percent. The Spanish IBEX fell 0.53 percent and the Italian MIB was also down 0.32 percent.
Energy futures continued their decline on Friday; Brent futures were down 0.36 percent and WTI futures fell 0.93 percent. Gold slipped 0.46 percent and silver lost 1.53 percent. Copper fared better with a 0.31 percent gain, but aluminum lost 1.58 percent.
The euro to dollar ratio was little changed at $1.3235, but the yen gained 0.39 percent against the greenback. The pound saw minimal gains against the dollar and the rupee lost ground against the dollar, falling 0.14 percent.
Earnings Reported Yesterday
Notable companies that reported earnings on Thursday included:
- Salesforce.com Inc. CRM reported second quarter EPS of $0.09 on revenue of $957.00 million, beating estimates of EPS of $0.07 on $938.81 million.
- Campbell Soup Company CPB reported fourth quarter EPS of $0.45 on revenue of $1.72 billion, compared to last year’s EPS of $0.41 on revenue of $1.62 billion.
- Toronto Dominion Bank TD reported third quarter EPS of $1.05 on revenue of $6.00 billion, below estimates of EPS of $1.71 on revenue of $6.31 billion.
Stocks moving in the pre-market included:
- Salesforce.com Inc CRM gained 7.90 percent in premarket trade after the company’s second quarter results came in above Wall Street’s expectations
- Citigroup Inc. C lost 1.24 percent in premarket trade after the company agreed to undergo an audit of its online credit card account system when it was discovered that hackers were able to access several accounts.
Notable companies expected to report earnings on Friday include:
- Frontline Ltd. FRO is expected to report a second quarter loss of $0.50 per share on revenue of 47.64 million, compared to last year’s loss of $0.21 per share on revenue of $488.51 million.
Economics
Friday’s economic calendar is another busy one with the US set to release consumer sentiment and personal income data, and Canada and India putting out GDP data. From Europe we will see eurozone business climate, consumer confidence, unemployment and CPI data, Spanish current account data, Italian unemployment data, and German retail sales data.
Good luck with your trades and have a great Labor Day weekend!
For a recap of Thursday’s market action, click here
<p>Tune into Benzinga’s pre-market info show with Dennis Dick and Joel Elconin <a>href=http://marketfy.com/store/item/premarket-info/>here</a>.</p>
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Date | ticker | name | Actual EPS | EPS Surprise | Actual Rev | Rev Surprise |
|---|
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
