Stock Market

Apple Earnings Good or Bad?

Finance Gourmet on April 23rd, 2012

Apple reports earnings on April 24. This report is actually for earnings from the 2nd quarter of Apple’s fiscal year, even though corporations on a calendar year are reporting first quarter earnings right now. (Several tech companies reported earnings last week.) After a rough week for the company in the headlines, these earnings will likely [...]

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Finance Gourmet on April 22nd, 2012

This past week featured the earnings release of several major technology companies, coming closely on the heels of major earnings announcements from other tech companies, including Google and Apple. IBM Earnings First up, IBM reported revenue of $24.7 billion leading to earnings of $2.78 per share. The consensus estimates from analysts were a bit higher [...]

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Finance Gourmet on April 12th, 2012

Google just reported its quarterly earnings. They did very well, beating pretty much every analyst’s numbers. Those who want to nitpick will complain that the price per click has gone down. However, that isn’t really surprising considering that the number of clicks went up. There are some issues coming with Google’s stock, but this isn’t [...]

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Finance Gourmet on March 2nd, 2012

As always, the mainstream media perked up about the stock market and investing world when the Dow Jones Industrial Average passed the made-f0r-headlines 13,000 level. The guys that write news story headlines love round numbers, maybe because everyone else does too. But, just like our infatuation with round number birthdays, such as turning 40, there [...]

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Finance Gourmet on December 31st, 2011

The results of the stock market for 2011 are basically flat. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average can claim a small gain, the S&P 500 Index ended 2011 with a small loss. Likewise, the NASDAQ ended down for 2011 as well. 2011 Dow Jones Up The Dow finished up for 2011 thanks in part to [...]

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Finance Gourmet on December 18th, 2011

Reuters has an article today noting that the S&P500 index is in negative territory for the 2011 year. That’s bad news for the huge number of investors invested in index funds. The benchmark for many mutual funds and other investment’s performance is down approximately 3 percent year to date. To get make the market index [...]

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Finance Gourmet on December 15th, 2011

Just a quick update today: The stock markets ticked up today on a little bit more good economic news. Following recent good labor market news and the Fed holding interest rates at zero, comes statistics showing last weeks jobless claims were at a 3 1/2 year low. Also, several large companies reported good results. Furthermore, [...]

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Finance Gourmet on December 5th, 2011

Bloomberg has an interesting snippet about that so-called “lost decade” everyone keeps talking about. It turns out if you had invested in the stocks of the S&P 500 equally (equal weight) back at the market peak of March 24, 2000, you would have had a 66 percent gain through December 2, 2011, not a zero [...]

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Finance Gourmet on October 14th, 2011

Sometimes it seems like the stock market is just messing with people. After seemingly running off of a cliff to end the third quarter of 2011, the market has recently staged a rally. Take a look at a chart for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and you’ll see a low point on October 3, 2011. [...]

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Finance Gourmet on October 2nd, 2011

The third quarter just closed on September 30th and it was not a pretty sight for short-term investors. The S&P 500 closed at 1,131.42 which is down 14 percent for the third-quarter. It started the year by opening on January 3rd (the 1st and 2nd were Saturday and Sunday, respectively) at 1,257.62.  That is a [...]

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