Posts Tagged ‘GS’

  • S&P 500 At Five-Month High
    , January 10th, 2012 at 10:01 am

    Thanks to a decent earnings report from Alcoa ($AA), the stock market is riding higher this morning. The S&P 500 just broke above 1,290 and is now at its highest point since August 1.

    Earnings season starts this week, and JPMorgan Chase ($JPM) will be our first Buy List stock to report. JPM reports earnings on Friday. This report will be closely watched by a lot of traders to get an idea of how well the banking sector did in Q4.

    Many of the large banks have seen their earnings estimates slashed over the past several weeks. Goldman Sachs ($GS), for example, was expected to earn $2.86 per share for the fourth quarter two months ago. Today that estimate is down to $1.69. Wall Street has cut Morgan Stanley’s ($MS) earnings estimate from a profit of 30 cents per share to a loss of 56 cents per share.

    JPMorgan has mostly side-stepped the downgrade party. Over the past two months, Wall Street has cut its Q4 forecast from 98 cents per share to 91 cents per share. That’s unpleasant but it’s not nearly as bad as some others.

    Again, we need to add some context. Even if JPM’s earnings came in on the low side, the stock is still going for about eight times what it will make in 2011. That’s pretty darn cheap. Plus, I hope to see the bank raise its dividend again.

  • The Market Is Down on News from…Slovakia?
    , October 11th, 2011 at 9:38 am

    The stock market looks to open lower this morning. Once again, investors are looking at events in Europe. Each country needs to approve a deal to increase the size of the European bailout fund. The only country left is Slovakia. I can’t remember the last time investors in the U.S. were concerned about events in Slovakia, but here we are.

    After today’s close, Alcoa ($AA) will be the first major company to report earnings. Wall Street expects 22 cents per share compared with nine cents one year ago.

    Interestingly, while many large “capital markets” banks are feeling the squeeze, many retails banks are doing quite well. Goldman Sachs ($GS) may report a quarterly loss in a few days, but banks like Wells Fargo ($WFC) are thriving. Every stock in the KBW Bank Index ($BKX) is down for the year.

    On Thursday, JPMorgan Chase ($JPM) will report its third-quarter earnings. Here are some interesting comments from Bloomberg:

    The split between Wall Street businesses and other types of banking will be demonstrated by JPMorgan, the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets. The New York-based company will report 95 cents of earnings per share for the quarter, just 6 percent lower than a year earlier, according to the average estimate of 30 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

    Those earnings, the lowest in six quarters, may reflect gains in consumer lending and credit-card revenue as well as declines at the investment bank. James Staley, 54, who runs the investment bank, said at an investor presentation on Sept. 13 that “markets revenue” will decline about 30 percent from the second quarter and that fees from investment banking will be about $1 billion.

  • Goldman Breaks Below $100
    , September 12th, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    Shares of Goldman Sachs ($GS) dropped below $100 very briefly today. This is an enormous drop off from the start of the year when the stock was at $168. Bear in mind that Goldman earned over $22 per share in 2009.