Posts Tagged ‘Dow Jones Industrial’

Stock Market Heads Toward 10,000 Mark

Monday, September 28th, 2009

The recent upward trend of the stock market has led investment experts to believe that the Dow Jones Industrial Average will soon pass the 10,000 mark  for the first time in a year.

Craig Peckham, equity trading strategist at Jeffries & Co., and Michael Cuggino, president and portfolio manager at Permanent Portfolio Funds, believe it will happen sooner rather than later.

invest“I think we’ll see [10,000] before the end of the year,” Cuggino told CNBC.  “We’re going to continue to see momentum in earnings growth in the third and fourth quarters and that’s going to propel stocks further.”

Cuggino said the markets may be in for a wild ride but they have come a long way in 2009, but he believes economic trends are “ones of growth” and will rally the markets.

Peckham believes the Dow will reach 10,000 in a few weeks.

“My bigger question is that when we will see earnings results in the third quarter — the bar has been raised pretty dramatically and the expectation is for a much more significant improvement in the topline from corporate America,” Peckham said.  “So it’s imperative that we have a real good sense of where expectations lie going into the third quarter, relative to stock prices.”

The harder question is when we will see the buoyant stock market and recuperating earnings affect the labor market.  This is the real indication of recovery.

Wells Fargo Wagon Rolls onto Wall Street

Friday, April 10th, 2009

The Wells Fargo wagon delivered good news to Wall Street when the San Francisco-based bank announced a record first-quarter profit of approximately $3 billion, or 55 percent per common share.  Contrast these numbers with the fourth quarter of 2008, when Wells Fargo reported a $2.6 billion loss.

The news sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring 3.1 percent to finish the day at 8,083.38, the highest closing since February 9.wellsfargo

Wells credited the outstanding results to healthy lending margins driven by low interest rates and the resulting boom in mortgage lending activity.  “Our business momentum is strong, and we expect our operating margins to remain at the top of our peer group,” said John Stumpf, Wells Fargo’s CEO.  Applications for mortgages surged during the first quarter; Wells reported $83 billion in applications for new and refinance home loans during March alone.

Wells is the nation’s largest mortgage servicer and a leading home loan originator, so it benefited from the refinancing boom driven by extremely low short-term interest rates and the government’s purchases of mortgage bonds.

Although this is evidence that the Obama administration’s efforts to jump-start the economy by freeing up credit are starting to work, it is only the hint of a beginning for banks with significant mortgage portfolios.  Wells and competitors such as Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase remain dangerously exposed to falling asset prices, especially for commercial and residential real estate.