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By Alex Eule
| Tuesday, October 26 Tech
Holds Up. The S&P
500 and Dow
Jones Industrial Average squeezed out record closes yet again today.
For the Dow, it marked a third straight record day, though it was by the
narrowest of margins, up just 16 points, or 0.04%. The S&P rose
0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile,
was up 0.06%. It's less than 1 percentage point away from its
early September peak. The small
gains belied a busy market, with at least 36 S&P 500 companies reporting
earnings on the day, including tech heavyweights Microsoft, Alphabet, Advanced
Micro Devices, and Twitter. The
reaction to those afternoon reports was mixed, but the companies all
avoided the kind of blow-up that Snap sustained last
week. The Snapchat parent lost nearly a quarter of its value after the
company highlighted advertising challenges. That warning had
investors nervous heading into tech's biggest week of quarterly
earnings. So far,
though, tech is holding its own. After waffling following last night's
earnings, Facebook managed to lose
just 3.9% today. That's a sizable decline but far from a
worst-case scenario given the company's many controversies and the
challenging ad market. Its digital ad counterpart Alphabet reported
strong results. Its stock was down slightly in late trading. Connor
Smith has
more on Alphabet
and Twitter here.
Eric Savitz notes that Microsoft tonight forecast its
first-ever $50 billion quarter. The company now expects to
generate fourth-quarter revenue somewhere between $50 and $51 billion.
Its third-quarter results were better than expected. Twitter
shares were up 3.1% in late trading after the company said
that recent privacy changes from Apple -- the same ones that hurt Snap -- had
less of an impact than expected in the third quarter. It was a
busy day of earnings outside of tech, too. Some of those highlights
include an impressive
report from UPS, a disappointing
quarter and even worse outlook from aerospace and defense firm Lockheed
Martin, and a decent
beat from General
Electric. You can find
all of our earnings coverage here. Meanwhile, a
decline in Covid cases seems to have consumers feeling more upbeat.
After three months of declines, consumer confidence rose in
October, besting economists' forecast. Lynn
Franco of The Conference
Board, which runs the consumer confidence survey, said: "The
proportion of consumers planning to purchase homes, automobiles, and major
appliances all increased in October—a sign that consumer spending will
continue to support economic growth through the final months of 2021." |
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DJIA:
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Stock: United Parcel
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