
S&P 500 Clinches Record High as Wall Street Shrugs Off Earnings
The S&P 500 managed to clinch a new record high on Friday even with a number of factors trying to pull it into the red. Not only did earnings reports largely disappoint on Friday, crude oil also slumped to end the day below $45 a barrel.
The S&P 500 closed 0.5% higher at a record close of 2,175, a mere point above its last record close on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.29%, and the Nasdaq added 0.52%.
Wall Street capped off Friday with another flood of earnings releases in a week jam-packed with them. The earnings season is more than a a quarter of the way through. Many analysts expect the second quarter to act as a bottom following quarter after quarter of receding earnings, the worst streak since the financial crisis.
Starbucks (SBUX) - Get Report missed sales estimates in its recent quarter on slowing growth in the domestic market. The coffee chain reported revenue of $5.24 billion, $100 million lower than estimated. Guidance also failed to surpass estimates. Starbucks anticipates fourth-quarter profit between 54 cents and 55 cents a share, while analysts expected 55 cents.
Starbucks is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells SBUX? Learn more now.
Pandora (P) reported an unexpected dip in the number of listeners over its recent quarter. The music-streaming site reported 78.1 million active listeners by the end of the quarter, down from 79.4 million a year earlier. Total listener hours rose 7%. Analysts had expected the number of active listeners to increase to 80.3 million.
Chipotle (CMG) - Get Report endured the fallout from a months-long health scare that continued to affect its bottom line. The burrito chain earned 87 cents a share in its recent quarter, a sharp decline from $4.45 a share in the year-ago quarter. Analysts expected earnings of 91 cents. Same-restaurant sales slumped 23.6%.
General Electric (GE) - Get Report was one of the better earnings on Friday, besting estimates as it shook off weakness from its oil and gas and transport equipment units. Chief financial officer Jeff Bornstein said just 15% of its business was "going through a very difficult cycle."
General Electric is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells GE? Learn more now.
PayPal (PYPL) - Get Report announced a partnership agreement with Visa (V) - Get Report , wherein a greater number of stores will be able to accept payment through the online company. PayPal also beat analysts' estimates after reporting its second-quarter results.
"The new agreement will allow PayPal to gain access to Visa tokenization services, beginning in the United States," wrote Jim Cramer, TheStreet's founder and manager of the Action Alerts PLUS portfolio, and research manager Jack Mohr. Action Alerts PLUS owns shares of both PayPal and Visa in its portfolio.
The Dow snapped a seven-day streak of record closes on Thursday on a mix of earnings from the likes of Southwest (LUV) - Get Report and Intel (INTC) - Get Report . The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also closed lower.
Crude oil prices declined on Friday after an increase in the number of active oil rigs drilling for crude in the U.S. The number of active rigs increased by 14 to 371, according to Baker Hughes data. Surging global production and building inventories have pressured crude recently.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil was down 3.8% for the session, closing at $44.19 a barrel on Friday. Crude was down 3.8% for the week.
German police were on the hunt for shooters tied to a Munich mall shooting on Friday afternoon. Munich police said nine people were killed in the attack, and a manhunt is underway for perpetrators.
Boeing weighed heavily on the Dow after warning of a $2 billion second-quarter charge tied to its 787, 747 and KC-46 aircraft. The aerospace company has suffered weaker demand for its large planes, an industry-wide problem that has also hurt peers such as Honeywell (HON) - Get Report and Airbus. The write-offs will be detailed further when it releases second-quarter earnings on Wednesday. Shares were down 2%.









