Friday, April 11, 2008

Stocks plunge on GE news

Stocks plunged on GE's disappointing Q1 earnings report. Since 2005, GE managed to report earnings within a penny of final results. This time, their 43¢ was far below the 50-53¢ guidance. Dow was down 256 (partially due to GE's 4.70 decline), decliners ahead of advancers 4-1 & NAZ down 61. Stocks closed at the lows, always a bad sign. For April, Dow is only up 63 & that's due to big gain on April 1. Another way to look at it, is those gains were an April Fool's joke.

Overlooked with the excitement about GE, the Michigan Surveys of Consumers reported its index of confidence fell to 63.2 in Apr, its lowest point in 26 years & down from 69.5 in March. Economists had expected the index to fall to 68.0. This puts the idea of recovery in the second half in greater doubt. As the head of the FED said, the economy is fighting headwinds.

2 comments:

Zbyszek Papiński said...

Why are American stocks so expensive ?

We`ll see their test after banks` results soon :))

GL

Avi said...

Banks are selling off after WB's loss. There probably will be more ugly news coming.