Looking Ahead to Friday's Market

October 18, 2012

by Don Moenning

Quick Recap of Thursday’s Session:

Stocks finished lower on Thursday in a particularly choppy session of trading, snapping the S&P 500's 3-day winning streak. Major indices started the day modestly lower following mostly better than expected data from China but a tick higher in Weekly Jobless Claims here in the US. Sentiment was bolstered early on by better than expected Philly Fed Index and LEIs. The bulls looked to be in complete control in the early afternoon and appeared poised for a breakout. However, an accidental early earnings release from Google (GOOG) hit the wires at 12:30pm EST and disappointed heavily, sending stocks plunging for hours. GOOG was down 9.03% before shares were halted. Stocks rallied in the final hour of trading to finish off of their intraday lows, but still in negative territory. Microsoft (MSFT) reported earnings after the closing bell, delivering disappointing results.

S&P 500 -0.24%, NASDAQ -1.01 %, DJIA -0.06%, Midcaps -0.06%.

Looking Ahead to Friday:

Overnight we get PPI from Germand, Industrial Orders & Sales from Italy, and Public Sector Borrowing from the UK.

Before the bell there are a few high profile earnings announcements: General Electric (GE) and McDonalds (MCD)

Shortly after the open is Existing Home Sales @ 10:00am EST.

Thursday could have been a breakout day for stocks, but the eyebrow-raising early earnings announcement fiasco from Google single-handedly spoiled the bulls’ party. A weak report from Microsoft after the bell makes an already unattractive tech sector look that much weaker. With little data tomorrow morning, weak tech earnings, options expiration, and major indices sitting near the top of the trading range, we could see the return of the bears to close out the week.

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Looking Ahead to Friday's Market