Hello, and welcome to the inaugural edition of In Case You Missed XXXday — a new daily feature at InvestorPlace.com. The title pretty much tells it all — look, we all have busy lives and unless we’re getting six (or seven) figures to follow the market on a daily basis, occasionally we miss a day (or two). So, we’ll give you a quick capsule wrap of the prior day’s market, the post-close news worth knowing and a bit of what’s on tap for the current day.
But wait, there’s more — we’ll also do our part to cull the day’s best or, frankly, weirdest links in the financial media and blogosphere worth your attention. These may not always be hardcore investible ideas — and we’ll assume you’ve already seen the front page of the Journal and/or watched a few minutes of CNBC — but you may find something you wouldn’t otherwise (Keep in mind registration and/or subscriptions may apply to certain links).
We’ll forego the now-standard “tips of the hat” to all the link compilers we’re going to steal from — but here’s an inaugural shoutout to Paul Kedrosky, who, for our money, invented the concept back in the day with his Weekend Reading column at TheStreet.com (NASDAQ:TST). In many ways, we intend to live up to his idea of an eclectic, fun approach. If nothing else, our list should be a few minutes of amusement before focusing on the profit-making tasks at hand. And at best, you may find a few ideas before your fellow traders.
And, now, on with the show:
- Guess what — the stock market rose today. Surprise, eh? It was one of those typical 2011 trading sessions when nothing major is presenting itself as compelling news: a flat or opening beginning, then a grind all day to a new two-and-a-half year high. Energy stocks received a lot of the credit, but oil prices were lower, while natural gas prices were up only modestly. Much higher as a group were the mining stocks (mostly all metals and coal), as well as basic resources movers. Silver is back to within pennies of a new high after a January selloff. The Dow did actually close lower, by 5 points, for which you can blame Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and Verizon (NYSE:VZ), the index’s top two underperformers. The bond market was essentially a nonevent.
- After the closing bell, FedEx (NYSE:FDX) said it would miss third-quarter earnings expectations due to the impact of winter weather and higher-than-expected fuel prices. The company’s stock was down only slightly after-hours. Limelight Networks (NASDAQ:LLNW) was up nearly 15% after beating fourth-quarter earnings and revenue estimates. Marriott (NYSE:MAR) accomplished the same feat, but guided the Street lower for first-quarter profit estimates. Still, its stock was up more than 4% after hours. Masco (NYSE:MAS) shares were off 5.6% in late trading after a fourth-quarter miss. Reports were coming late Monday that NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse would announce a definitive merger agreement on Tuesday.
- After a Valentine’s Day off, the economic data flow hits fairly hard on Tuesday. We’ll get a report on January retail sales, the numbers for January’s import/export prices, the February Empire State manufacturing report, the December results on business inventories, and February homebuilder sentiment. Fourth-quarter earnings reports are clearly beginning to slow, and those worth paying attention to are even fewer. But after the closing bell, we’ll get a snapshot from PC maker Dell (NASDAQ:DELL).
OUT THERE SOMEWHERE:
- In case you thought search rankings just occurred naturally.
- While it appeared Mubarek was being defiant, he was actually squirreling away his dough.
- Obama’s big Pentagon cuts? Maybe not.
- Your city avoided the housing crash — until now.
- Amazon.com: Take that, Austin, Texas.
- Think Twitter is overvalued. How about more than $7 billion for a tech company few nongeeks know?
- Doug Short notes the developing/emerging market divergence.
- A podcast with financial disaster and Moneyball author Michael Lewis.
