The markets started the week fairly flat as investors turn their eyes towards earnings season. The Dow 30 sold off 6, the S&P 500 was flat, and the Nasdaq 100 was higher by 1. It will be a busy week for earnings which will kick off today after the close with results from Netflix. Scheduled economic news is light for the first part of the week so investors will have 100% attention focused on earnings.
Blue Apron (NASDAQ: APRN) shares took a beating today, losing 10.73% on news that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) would be a possible competitor in their space. It was reported earlier today that the tech giant filed a trademark application in June to get into the meal-kit business. In an article posted this weekend by The Times, said that the service is described as "We do the prep. You be the chef" and includes frozen, prepared and packaged meals. Blue Apron has already struggled to gain respect from Wall Street and now, with this big competitor will have to really step up their game.
Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) will be the major focus after the close today as the streaming, media company will announce their second quarter earnings. As always, the main area of focus for Wall Street will fbe on its subscriber growth. Analysts expect Netflix to add 631,000 domestic and 2.6 million international subscribers. Wall Street is looking for earnings per share of 16 cents on revenue of $2.76 billion.
BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) shares suffered a 3.08% decline today despite announcing a 9% rise in earnings during the second quarter. Wall Street had higher expectations for the financial firm overall which caused the selling pressure. BlackRock had earnings per share of $5.24 on revenue of $2.965 billion, but analysts were looking for $5.40 and sales of $3.019 billion. Shares are still higher by over 10% on the year despite the earnings miss.