MARKET SNAPSHOT: Stocks on Fire

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By Martin Foley on July 22, 2014 S&P 500

In Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes, companies that operate businesses in financial and technology sector were on a rise, mainly because Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ:HBAN) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) reported their earnings this week. The Nasdaq Composite increased by 26 points and reached a total of 4,388.73 points. Similarly, the Dow Jones was increased by 0.3 percent and reached to 17,027.64. As far as S&P 500 index is concerned, the points increased by 0.4 percent and reached to 1,965.34.

However, there was a huge selloff in the market this Thursday, July 17, 2014, due to the Israel’s attack on Gaza and Malaysian airline crash in Ukraine. As the news of airline crash and the killing of 298 passengers reached the market, the equities flustered. The plane was crashed in Eastern Ukraine, a region where battle between Ukrainian troops and Pro-Russian separatists has been going on for quite a while now. According to the United States Intelligence agencies, the jet was crashed due to an air missile.

Nonetheless, the stocks were on a recovery by the next day, Friday, July 18, 2014.

U.S Bank Wealth’s chief equity strategist, Terry Sandven, said that the market was on a low due to the geo-political headlines. However, it is rising again for this market is driven by earnings and the earnings are promising and encouraging right now.

Coming to the shares of General Electric (NYSE:GE), the stocks of the company dropped by 0.8 percent when the company’s second quarter financial reports barely met the Wall Street’s estimates. On the last trading day, July 18, the company opened its stocks at a price of $26.77 and closed at a price of $26.46, after hitting the highest figures of $26.78. The company has a market capitalization of 266.21 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 18.1

Talking about Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ:HBAN), the company’s second quarter’s profits jumped up by 9 percent. This increase caused the S&P advancers to climb up by 3.7 percent. During the last trading session, July 18, the company opened its stocks at a price of $9.74 and closed at a slightly increased price of $9.75, after reaching the highest numbers of $9.78. The company has a market capitalization of 8.07 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 13.57.

As for Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), the stocks of the company saw an increase of 2 percent when Google posted its second quarter’s reports: the second quarter’s figures surpassed Wall Street’s estimates. In the last trading session, the company started its stocks at $593 and ended at $595.08, after hitting the highest figures of $596.80. The company has a market capitalization of 389.37 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 30.17.

On the downside, the shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD) plummeted by 19 percent when the company’s reported earnings fell below the estimates. On the last trade day, the company started its shares at a price of $3.73 and closed at $3.83. The intraday range for the stocks was $3.67 to $3.84. The company has a market capitalization of 2.92 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 35.79.