Slow Day For Stocks Yesterday, Earnings Season On Deck

Profit from the Pros Slow Day For Stocks Yesterday, Earnings Season On Deck Stocks closed modestly lower yesterday. But they won't need much to close higher for the week. And the Nasdaq is already in positive territory for the week. So we shall see. We'll get some big bank stocks reporting earnings today. Some better than expected earnings reports would be a great way to kick off the unofficial start to earnings season. But the official start to Q1 earnings season is actually next week when Alcoa reports earnings on Wednesday, April 17th, after the markets close. Earnings season is typically a good time for stocks. In fact, over the last 10 years since this bull market began, stocks have gone up on average of 2% during earnings season. And I'm expecting the same, if not more, this earnings season. In other news, Weekly Jobless Claims came in better than expected, with new claims falling -8,000 to 196K vs. estimates for 211K. This comes on the heels of last week's blowout jobs report. Our labor market has literally never been better. Inflation ticked up a bit, according to the Producer Price Index-Final Demand report. The m/m change was up 0.6% vs. views for 0.4%. But analysts noted that the recent rise in energy prices was the main culprit for this. In fact, the report cited a 5.4% rise in energy prices. Excluding the volatile energy and food components, however, the m/m change comes in at a more modest 0.3% increase. Today we'll get the Import and Export Prices report, and Consumer Sentiment. Optimism is still running high over a U.S.-China trade deal. Last week, the WH said they expected a deal within the next 4 weeks. After this week, there's 3 weeks left. So the market will be watching intently for any news on a deal in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the economy looks great, and so does the market. So make sure you're taking full advantage of it. 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