Stocks are higher with a little over an hour to go in trading today

Today will be a big day from earnings after the close.

Scheduled to release include:

  • Amazon
  • Alphabet (Google)
  • Intel
  • Microsoft

Facebook will release next week on November 1st.

Apple will also release next week on November 2nd.

Netflix (another FAANG stock - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google (now Alphabet)) already released on November 16th.

Over the last 3 months:

  • Amazon had a high of $1052 on July 27th and a low of $938.60 on September 26th. It trades at 979.08
  • Alphabet had a low of $920.87 on August 21 and a high on October 18 of $1,012.74. It trades at $997.50.
  • Intel bottomed at $34.65 on August 28 and is trading at record levels of $41.36 currently.
  • Microsoft bottomed on August 10 at $71.41 and is also trading at record levels of $79.08 currently.

As a reminder of what could happen:

  • Celegene is down $23.79 or -19.90% today after missing. The 3 month high close was at $146.52 on October 4th. The low is today at $95.63 currently. They announced the abandonment of a drug for Crohns disease last week and reported lower earnings and guidance today. Ouch.

Twitter is up today on better numbers. It trades at $20.33 up $3.19 or 18.61%. . That is the 3 month high. The low for the last 3 months was down at $15.75

JP Morgan is trading up $1 to a record $102.

Deutsche Bank reported earnings in European trading and is trading down $-0.33 or -1.90% to $16.79 as trading results slumped.

While US banks have been trending higher, the European counterparts remain stuck in the mud. The 1 year range for DB is $13.45. The high $20.85. The stock is trading in the middle of the range. The 5 year high was up at $52.27.

It is tough to make money when rates in Europe are negative and it looks like the ECB is not in a hurry to start raising them. 10 year yields in Europe remain below US comparable rates. To give you an idea, Portugal 10 year yield is at 2.238% while the US is at 2.4536%. German 10-year yields is way down at 0.415%. Bubble?

One day, should the ECB start to raise rates (or the market does it for them), look for an explosion of European bank stocks. Trading results should also do better.

For the time being, as time goes by the bad loans get written off (and they pay their fines from 2008 and such), headcount is cut, there is potential for some stock price gains as balance sheets get stronger. However, the gains should be limited as lending is more risky at low rates. So why lend?