Stocks Surge Ahead of the Fed — Tuesday’s IP Market Recap

by Marc Bastow | May 21, 2013 4:59 pm

[1]Two high-profile CEOs jumped under the spotlight Tuesday while investors pushed the major U.S. stock indices higher following positive comments by a Federal Reserve official[2] — in advance of Wednesday’s congressional testimony by Ben Bernanke — that relaxed concerns about the Fed’s quantitative easing program.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped back to a record high, rising 0.34% to end at 15387.58, while the S&P 500 also broke into record ground, improving 0.17% to 1669.16. The Nasdaq gained 0.16% to end at 3502.12.

JPMorgan (JPM[3]) CEO Jamie Dimon withstood a challenge[4] to his dual role as chairman of the board and CEO at the banking institution, and Apple (AAPL[5]) CEO Tim Cook hung in while being grilled before Congress about Apple’s tax practices. Neither incident had much effect on their respective companies’ stocks, with JPM improving just more than 1% and AAPL slipping fractionally.

In earnings news, Home Depot (HD[6]) rose more than 2% after posting first-quarter profits of 83 cents per share on revenues of $19 billion, topping expectations of 6 cents on $19 billion, respectively, while also improving its full-year outlook.

Medical technology company Medtronic (MDC[7]) moved ahead just under 5% after posting a 4% year-over-year advance in its fourth-quarter revenues thanks to improving sales of heart and spinal devices.

Headed the other way was Carnival Corp. (CCL[8]), down over 4% after it cut guidance[9] for the second time this year, and was promptly downgraded from “outperform” to “market perform” by both Wells Fargo and UBS.

Best Buy (BBY[10]) also saw its shares tumble, down more than 4% after reporting that first-quarter revenue fell almost 10% compared to the year-ago quarter, and sales for stores open at least 14 months fell over 1.4%. BBY did manage to post adjusted EPS of 36 cents, better than Wall Street estimates for 25 cents.

Earnings notables for Wednesday include Hewlett-Packard (HPQ[11]) and SeaWorld (SEAS[12]).

Three Up

• Yingli Green Energy (YGE[13]): Up 14.5% (45 cents) to $3.68.
• Saks (SKS[14]): Up 11.3% ($1.39) to $13.67%.
• Sony (SNE[15]): Up 9.3% ($1.94) to $22.91.

Three Down

• Solarcity (SCTY[16]): Down 13.7% ($7.08) to $44.52.
• Arm Holdings (ARMH[17]): Down 5.3% ($2.65) to $47.24.
• Zale (ZLC[18]): Down 4.6% (26 cents) to $5.40.

Marc Bastow is an Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing he is long AAPL.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/05/tuesdays-ip-market-recap-ccl-hpq-seas-hd-shos-mdc/

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