Ten for Ten

As of this writing, ten companies have reported earnings this morning and all ten have exceeded bottom-line forecasts, so that’s encouraging. As far as revenues are concerned, the results haven’t been as positive with only six companies exceeding top-line forecasts. The biggest winner so far this morning is Goldman Sachs (GS), which is up over 1% after crushing forecasts. On the downside, Domino’s (DPZ) is having a rough morning with a loss of 5% after revenues came up short of forecasts.

In economic news, Import and Export Prices both saw larger than expected declines, while Retail Sales came in stronger than expected. Futures, which had reversed earlier losses remain positive after the report.

Yesterday, we mentioned that there had been a modest expansion in new highs among S&P 500 stocks as over 13% of stocks in the index hit 52-week highs even as the S&P 500 was flat all day. That reading exceeded the sub-10% levels that we saw on much stronger days last Thursday and Friday.

In going through the charts of the large and mid-cap stocks hitting new highs yesterday, one trend that stood out is that many of them are very extended and probably due for some sort of pullback or at least a pause. This morning, though, we wanted to highlight some of those stocks that made new highs that aren’t as extended (relatively speaking) and are attempting to break out of short to intermediate-term trading ranges.