Courtesy of Blain.
Much like Monday it was another quiet session Tuesday but today’s afterhours had more fireworks. The S&P 500 gained 0.19% while the NASDAQ fell 0.15%. The Federal Open Market Committee kicked off its two-day meeting Tuesday and is scheduled to release its statement on monetary policy Wednesday afternoon. In economic news, durable goods orders rose a less-than-expected 0.8% in March after a downwardly revised 3.1% decline in February.
The U.S. central bank—which raised interest rates in December for the first time in nearly a decade—is widely expected to leave rates unchanged at the conclusion of its meeting. A major question for investors is how many more times in 2016 rates are likely to be raised.
“It’s waiting to see what the central banks have to say and earnings otherwise,” said Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at the Lindsey Group. While earnings have mostly beat lowered expectations, “it’s the realization that earnings continue to be challenged and economic growth continues to be challenged,” he said.
This is day 3 the NASDAQ has been stuck in this lower range below the breakout level marked in purple, and based on Apple’s action in afterhours tomorrow is not going to be pretty.
Katie Stockton, chief technical analyst at trading and research firm BTIG, said the S&P 500 is testing a technical level of 2,090, but has been losing momentum over the last few sessions.
A pretty large jump in the NYSE McClellan Oscillator today within the context of a very mild rally in the S&P 500.
Here is the Apple (AAPL) nosedive in after hours via TD Ameritrade ThinkorSwim brokerage.
Apple reported quarterly earnings and revenue that missed analysts’ estimates, and its guidance for the current quarter also fell shy of expectations. The tech giant said it saw fiscal second-quarter earnings of $1.90 per diluted share on $50.56 billion in revenue. Wall Street expected Apple to report earnings of about $2 a share on $51.97 billion in revenue. That revenue figure was a roughly 13% decline against $58.01 billion in the comparable year-ago period — representing the first year-over-year quarterly sales drop since 2003. A key reason for the declining revenue was Apple’s year-over-year decrease in iPhone sales. One area of weakness for Apple in its second-quarter was the Greater China segment — comprising mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Revenue for that region fell 26% year-over-year to $12.49 billion. The company announced a 10% dividend increase and a $50 billion increase to its capital return program.
Fun fact: Apple has lost $46 billion in market cap in the past few hours. That after-hours loss is greater than the market cap of 391 of the S&P 500 companies.
Procter & Gamble (PG) reported better-than-expected earnings but revenue that missed, falling for a seventh-straight quarter. The firm now estimates a decline of 3 to 6% in earnings per share for the fiscal year, versus a fall of 3 to 8% previously.
Twitter (TWTR) rallied during the normal market hours but got hit (-13%) in after hours.
Twitter disappointed investors yet again with first-quarter results that showed stagnant revenue growth as the microblogging service struggles to grab new users amid efforts to improve its complicated interface with several new features. The company reported lower-than-expected revenue, hurt by weaker than expected spending by big advertisers, and providing a current-quarter revenue forecast well below analysts’ expectations. Twitter’s user base grew modestly to 310 million monthly active users in the quarter ended March 31 from 305 million in the fourth quarter, above analysts’ expectations. But investors were let down by the revenue miss since outlining a turnaround plan.
Chipotle (CMG) likewise is getting hit (-5%) in after hours.
Chipotle Mexican Grill reported its first ever quarterly loss, after food giveaways failed to lure back large numbers of paying customers turned off by a string of food safety lapses last year. Sales at established Chipotle restaurants fell 29.7% during the quarter as the company gave away over 6 million free burritos and bowls of food as well as nearly 1 million free orders of chips and salsa or guacamole, Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung said on a conference call with analysts.
Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT) closed 26% down after the a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted against recommending approval for the company’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug.
Key earnings Wednesday include: Boeing, Comcast, United Tech., Facebook, Paypal, and Texas Instruments.
