The markets traded quietly but mostly positive following the holiday weekend. The Dow 30 was lower by 46 points, held back by some continued weakness in Boeing (BA ). The S&P 500 inched closer to record highs, but investors were cautious with a busy week of earnings ahead. Over 140 names in the S&P 500 will report this week with 64 names on Thursday alone and 400 across the entire market. So far, 77% of all S&P 500 names that have reported have beat on earnings, with about half of those beating on revenue.
Tomorrow the markets will focus on earnings from JetBlue (JBLU ), The Coca-Cola Company (KO ), Lockheed Martin (LMT ), Pulte Homes (PHM ), Twitter (TWTR ), eBay (EBAY ), and others.
Sector News
Oil was the big leader today as the US announced that it would be ending the Iranian waivers on oil exports effective May 2. Any buyers of Iranian oil will now be subject to sanctions themselves. The move is estimated to remove about 1 million barrels per day off the global markets, which have already been tightening thanks to continued supply cuts out of OPEC.
REITs (ICF ) continued their pullback from last week with losses of over 1%. The REIT space has been one of the stronger areas of the market until recently as rates have steadily crept higher. For the year REITs are still higher by about 15%.
Stock News
Kimberly Clark (KMB ) shares were sharply higher today as the company reported earnings that beat by 12 cents and revenue that was also higher than Wall Street expected. The company cited consumers' absorption of higher prices as well as some cost cutting efforts that helped them offset some currency issues in the first quarter. Shares are now approaching the 20% level year to date.
Tesla (TSLA ) shares were lower again today as the company is due to report earnings later this week. The SEC as well as Musk have asked a federal judge for more time as they negotiate a settlement from their ongoing dispute. In other news, the company is investigating a fire which led to an explosion in Shanghai on Sunday, which was caught on closed circuit cameras. The stock was also downgraded today by Evercore with a price target of $240.
Boeing (BA ) weighed on the Dow today as a New York Times article cited employees concerns about "shoddy production and weak oversight" regarding the production of the 787 Dreamliner at the South Carolina factory. Boeing was quick to dispute the article, calling it inaccurate.
