Tech Strength, Retail Weakness
“The strong reports from technology are certainly helping.”
– Tony Dwyer (subscription required), Equity Market Strategist, FTN Midwest Research
“A lot of things are calling into question the strength of the economy.”
– Todd Clark (subscription required), Director of Trading, Nollenberger Capital Partners
The strong report from Apple (AAPL) is certainly helping tech, with Apple’s shares up $11.64, or 6.68% and tech leading the markets higher.
But headwinds from other sectors are hurting what would otherwise have been an excellent, Apple-driven rally.
Luxury goods retailer Coach (COH), reported a strong quarter but warned of “weak traffic trends in our US retail stores, especially during the last several weeks” and forecasted low single digit US retail same store sales for the current holiday quarter (FY 1Q Earnings Release).
Coach’s shares are being taken to the woodshed, down $4.76, or 11.48%.
Target (TGT) also reduced its same stores sales forecast for October on “continued disappointing sales results in the first two weeks” of the month, after posting a weak September.
In other earnings news, UPS (UPS) reported an in line quarter, though US deliveries were the laggard with a 2% revenue increase on a .8% increase in volume (3Q Earnings Release).
The story was the same at Dupont (DD) where earnings were again in line but the US was weak with revenues down 1% (3Q Earnings Release).
Here’s how markets look:
Dow: +.23%
S&P: +.19%
Nasdaq: +.61%