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By Nicholas
Jasinski | Tuesday, October 13 Earnings
Parade. Stock indexes closed
with modest losses today, after investors received some
potentially bad news on the Covid-19 vaccine and treatment
front. There was little movement toward a fiscal stimulus bill in
Washington, and the day's economic data was good but
not great. Last
night, Johnson & Johnson said that it had paused
its trial of a coronavirus vaccine after an unexplained illness in
a trial participant. And this afternoon, Eli
Lilly confirmed that a clinical
trial of its Covid-19 antibody treatment had been halted on “potential safety
concerns.” The Dow
Jones Industrial Average closed down nearly 0.6%,
the S&P 500 dipped just
over 0.6%, and the Nasdaq
Composite ticked down 0.1%. But most of
the day's action was on the individual stock level, as third-quarter earnings
season kicked off. As usual,
big banks are among the first companies to report. Citigroup and JPMorgan
Chase both posted better-than-expected
earnings thanks to a surge in their equities and fixed-income trading
revenues. A volatile quarter in the markets helped business there. And both
banks reported relatively low loan-loss reserves. But Citi
stock fell 4.9%, and JPMorgan's lost 1.7%. Investors were clearly looking for
more, and still have concerns about the outlook for banks. An uncertain
economy, limited ability to return capital to shareholders, and ultralow
interest rates are just a few of the challenges facing the group. Carleton
English covered JPMorgan's earnings here
and Citigroup's here. Asset
manager BlackRock also
had a strong quarter, and its stock jumped 3.8% today. It saw growth in
revenues, earnings, and assets. “You wouldn’t know we’d been in a global
pandemic: These results were outstanding,” said one analyst. Leslie
Norton has more here. Separately
from its vaccine trial announcement, Johnson & Johnson reported
better-than-forecast revenue and earnings in the third quarter. It also
raised its sales and earnings forecast for the year. But expectations were
high: Johnson & Johnson shares closed down 2.3%. Teresa
Rivas covered the report here. Bucking the
trend was Delta Air
Lines, which has an expectedly rough three
months. The stock lost 2.6% today after the airline reported a
pretax loss of $6.9 billion on $3.1 billion in revenue. Delta also said
it ended the quarter with $21.6 billion in liquidity. Daren
Fonda has more here. On deck to
report tomorrow are Bank of
America, Goldman
Sachs Group, United
Airlines Holdings, UnitedHealth
Group, Wells
Fargo, and several other notable
companies. |
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