Yahoo Finance Q3 Earnings Season in Full Swing
This morning, ahead of a market open which points nicely in the green across the board — the Dow +100 points, the S&P 500 +20 and the Nasdaq +90 points at this hour — we see a new report of home prices from late this summer. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index for August came in at +19.8%, right in-line with what analysts were looking for, and identical to July’s headline.
Both the 10-City and 20-City composites dipped a tad from the previous month, to +18.6% and +19.7%, respectively, though lower mortgage rates were able to keep home prices “lofty.” Phoenix and San Diego continue to lead home prices higher — +33.3% and +26.2%, respectively — with Tampa Bay knocking Seattle off the third spot for the month, +25.9%. In all, a strong report that reflects continued strong demand in the home-buying market.
Delivery and logistics major United Parcel Service (UPS) easily beat estimates on both top and bottom lines in its Q3 report out this morning. Earnings of $2.71 per share posted a +7.5% positive earnings surprise over Zacks consensus, and nicely ahead of the $2.28 per share reported a year ago. Revenues of $23.2 billion surpassed expectations by +2.5%.
Demand in the delivery space has clearly not abated, allowing UPS to pass along higher costs to consumers in the quarter. As a result of these latest figures, UPS is +4.3% in today’s pre-market, after already having outperformed the S&P 500 year to date: +24.5% versus +21.1%. It’s the sixth straight quarter beating earnings estimates; the company has only missed three times in the past five years.
On the other side of the Q3 earnings picture, Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) put up mixed results this morning, missing on earnings by 4 cents (2%) to $1.94 per share while coming out ahead on the top line: +1.73% to $6.77 billion in quarterly sales. This marks three straight earnings misses for the Big Pharma player, though the +45% year-to-date price gains look undisturbed by this report.
This afternoon, earnings season becomes even more substantial: Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Texas Instruments (TXN) and Visa (V) all report after today’s closing bell. This will bring us within two FAANG stocks yet to report for the quarter, Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN).
During regular trading today, Consumer Confidence for October and New Home Sales for September will be hitting the tape. All of this information should be of interest to the Fed, which reconvenes for its next policy meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday.
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