Νέα ιστορικά υψηλά για S&P500 και Russell 2000- (προ)Eτοιμάζεται και ο Dow Jones

Νέα ιστορικά υψηλά για τον S&P500 – (προ)ετοιμάζεται και ο Dow Jones


Stock Market Today: Dow, S&P 500 and Russell 2000 All Hit New Highs

Wall Street closed out the week on a positive note, and with a resumption of the rotation into value stocks we’ve discussed over the past few days.

Friday saw several major indices finish in record territory, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which steadily rose throughout most of the day to finish 1.4% higher to 29,479.

Boeing (BA) got back into its early-week form with a robust 5.9% improvement. But it was Cisco Systems (CSCO, +7.1%) that led the Dow’s 30 components after reporting better-than-expected revenues and profits while also providing hope that its four-quarter streak of revenue declines might soon come to an end.

“Some investors have expressed concern that Cisco risks becoming the IBM of several years ago, when that company masked a multi-year stream of quarterly revenue declines with share buybacks that artificially lifted EPS,” says Argus Research analyst Jim Kelleher, who just reiterated his Buy rating on CSCO. “While IBM was being outflanked in new markets such as cloud, social and mobile, Cisco does not appear to be losing share; instead, its challenges mainly derive from pandemic-impacted demand.”

“Cisco is also maintaining high pretax margins and continuing to generate strong free cash flows. The company is successfully shifting its mix away from hardware and toward an integrated software, hardware and services solution.”

Cisco’s report was hardly unusual, however: S&P 500 components have been knocking down profit targets left and right. “84% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise for Q3,” says FactSet’s John Butters. “If 84% is the final percentage, it will tie the mark for the highest percentage of S&P 500 companies reporting positive EPS surprises since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2008.”

Walmart (WMT) and Home Depot (HD) are among major companies that will report next week as the Q3 earnings season starts to wind down.