McDonald's led blue-chip declines after earnings disappoint
US stocks ended with little gains at Wall Street on Monday, 22 July 2013. This week started on with Dow component McDonald's reporting earnings miss on below-consensus revenue. The fast food giant observed a decline in Asian and European same store sales while blaming the disappointing results on consumer uncertainty regarding the economic outlook. Stocks still managed to eke out gains as the financial and health-care sectors led the market higher.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.81 points to 15,545.55. The S&P 500 closed up 3.44 points, or 0.2%, to 1,695.53, rising for a fourth straight session. The Nasdaq Composite index gained 12.77 points, or 0.4%, to 3,600.39.
Leading the Dow higher, Microsoft and H-P rose 1.9% and 1.5%, respectively. Fast-food chain McDonald's led blue-chip declines, with its shares off 2.7% after the release of its second-quarter earnings.
Among economic data expected at Wall Street today, June existing home sales fell 1.2% from a downwardly revised 5.14 million in May to 5.08 million. The consensus expected existing home sales to increase to 5.28 million. The drop in home sales does not bode well for the future. It was expected that rising mortgage rates would accelerate demand in the near term as potential buyers aimed to lock in mortgages before rates went even higher. That was supposed to pull sales forward into May, June and July, before a payback period developed in the future. However, that surge has not materialized in the June report.
Also of note, the technology sector rose and Google climbed 1.6% to erase its Friday slide caused by disappointing earnings.
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Bullion metal prices ended substantially higher on Monday, 22 July 2013 at Comex. Gold prices were boosted by heavy short covering and crossed four-week highs today. The weakening state of the U.S. dollar index has also been bullish for the precious metals just recently
Gold for August delivery ended higher by $43.1 (3.3%) at $1,336 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday. September silver ended higher by $1.05 (5.4%) at $20.51 an ounce on Monday.
The commodity markets also saw some buying support coming from last Friday's move by China's central bank to lower the interest rate floor on China's banks' lending rates. Just a few weeks ago a liquidity crunch in China's banking system spooked the world market place.
Crude-oil prices ended moderately lower on Thursday, 22 July 2013 at Nymex. Prices settled back below $107 a barrel on Monday despite a weak dollar. Latest economic data at Wall Street impacted prices. Light and sweet crude for August ended lower by $1.14 (1.1%) at $106.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday.
The U.S. dollar index, which weighs the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies, fell by 0.3% on Monday.
More than 580 million shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Composite volume topped 2.7 billion, below the one-month average.
Indian ADRs ended higher on Monday. In the IT space, Infosys was up 2.7% and Wipro was up 1.4%. In the Banking space, HDFC Bank was up 0.4% and ICICI Bank was up 1%. In other space, Tata Motors was up 0.9%, and Sterlite was up 0.5%.
Tomorrow's economic data will be limited to the May FHFA Housing Price Index, which will be released at 9:00 ET
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