Its quite a week in terms of news from the U.S especially after a 318 point drop on the Dow Jones Industrials on Friday. The focus is the Federal Reserve’s FOMC meeting, the last with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and some big earnings announcements with the peak of the fourth quarter 2013 reports due this week.
Companies reporting this week include Ford, Amazon, Caterpillar, DuPont, Pfizer, AT&T, Boeing, ExxonMobil, Visa, and Chevron. On the tech front there is Yahoo on Tuesday, Facebook on Wednesday and Google on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will complete up its two day meeting with an additional $10 billion of asset purchase tapering likely In December, the committee triggered a big rally in stocks when it said it would cut $10 billion from its $85 billion a month in purchases because of a strengthening American economy.
On the earnings front two names come into focus today and that’s construction equipment company, Caterpillar, before the US market open and then Apple after the close of trading. With nerves frayed after the large drop in the markets in the latter part of last week following concerns about China, Argentina and other emerging markets, lets see what these names will bring to the mood at the start of the new trading week.
Caterpillar is always an interesting company to hear from given it serves a useful litmus test of what is happening in emerging markets and also the commodity mining business. Caterpillar is projected to post fourth-quarter earnings of $1.27 a share.
For Apple, there will be much attention focused not just on the financials but also on any hint of news of new products such as the much rumoured TV, Watch and large screen iPhones.
Revenues for the fiscal Q1 quarter (but for actual Q4 2013) are expected to come in at $58 billion, with Earnings per share of $14.09-14.35. iPhone sales should be in the range of 56-57 million and iPad 25 million. Fiscal Q2 revenue and EPS guidance should be around $46.0 billion and $10.90.
The other question marks are what are the management team planning to do with the iPhone 5C whose sales have been disappointing compared with the 5S which was launched at the same time and has a much better margin. The iPhone represents around half of Apple’s revenues.
Activist investor, Carl Icahn, has become a thorn in the side of Tim Cook and the Apple board. Icahn has been desperately trying to get Apple to use more of its huge cash pile of around $150 billion back into shareholders pockets via share buy backs or an enhanced dividend.
Expectations are for the company’s profit margin to be heading back towards 40% from the current 36% over the coming year as it pushes out new innovations especially wearable devices which are seen to be the next big thing of 2014. Will Cook deliver on his promises that 2014 will be an exciting year for employees, investors and consumers?
With the FTSE 100 futures currently showing a further decline of 70 points, corporate and FOMC news is going to be keenly followed by investors as they pile off the bandwagon or clamber back on after the sell off.
Contrarian Investor UK
by contrarianuk
A big week for news from the United States this week to excite or worry investors – FOMC and Apple
Jan 27, 2014 at 6:31 am in Market Commentary by contrarianuk
Its quite a week in terms of news from the U.S especially after a 318 point drop on the Dow Jones Industrials on Friday. The focus is the Federal Reserve’s FOMC meeting, the last with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and some big earnings announcements with the peak of the fourth quarter 2013 reports due this week.
Companies reporting this week include Ford, Amazon, Caterpillar, DuPont, Pfizer, AT&T, Boeing, ExxonMobil, Visa, and Chevron. On the tech front there is Yahoo on Tuesday, Facebook on Wednesday and Google on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will complete up its two day meeting with an additional $10 billion of asset purchase tapering likely In December, the committee triggered a big rally in stocks when it said it would cut $10 billion from its $85 billion a month in purchases because of a strengthening American economy.
On the earnings front two names come into focus today and that’s construction equipment company, Caterpillar, before the US market open and then Apple after the close of trading. With nerves frayed after the large drop in the markets in the latter part of last week following concerns about China, Argentina and other emerging markets, lets see what these names will bring to the mood at the start of the new trading week.
Caterpillar is always an interesting company to hear from given it serves a useful litmus test of what is happening in emerging markets and also the commodity mining business. Caterpillar is projected to post fourth-quarter earnings of $1.27 a share.
For Apple, there will be much attention focused not just on the financials but also on any hint of news of new products such as the much rumoured TV, Watch and large screen iPhones.
Revenues for the fiscal Q1 quarter (but for actual Q4 2013) are expected to come in at $58 billion, with Earnings per share of $14.09-14.35. iPhone sales should be in the range of 56-57 million and iPad 25 million. Fiscal Q2 revenue and EPS guidance should be around $46.0 billion and $10.90.
The other question marks are what are the management team planning to do with the iPhone 5C whose sales have been disappointing compared with the 5S which was launched at the same time and has a much better margin. The iPhone represents around half of Apple’s revenues.
Activist investor, Carl Icahn, has become a thorn in the side of Tim Cook and the Apple board. Icahn has been desperately trying to get Apple to use more of its huge cash pile of around $150 billion back into shareholders pockets via share buy backs or an enhanced dividend.
Expectations are for the company’s profit margin to be heading back towards 40% from the current 36% over the coming year as it pushes out new innovations especially wearable devices which are seen to be the next big thing of 2014. Will Cook deliver on his promises that 2014 will be an exciting year for employees, investors and consumers?
With the FTSE 100 futures currently showing a further decline of 70 points, corporate and FOMC news is going to be keenly followed by investors as they pile off the bandwagon or clamber back on after the sell off.
Contrarian Investor UK