Wall Street Waits for Start of Earnings Season
January 9th, 10:08 pm by Lior Alkalay
(eToro Blog) Wall Street traded lightly today as investors waited for the start of the fourth quarter earnings season after the end of the U.S. session today. The Dow is up 16 points, the Nasdaq is up 2 points and the S&P 500 is up 1 point at the time of writing this report. Traders on OpenBook are primarily long the Dow (DJ30) with average limits at 12,200 and stops at 12,450.
Federal Reserve official Dennis Lockhart said that he would take a pragmatic approach to monetary policy and expects steady progress from the U.S. economy this year. He forecasts growth to remain between 2.5% and 3.0% and inflation to remain under 2%. He believes that the Fed should continue its accommodative policy with an emphasis on lowering the unemployment rate. He thinks that policy makers should not look to change policy in either direction as long as the situation in Europe remains unpredictable.
Swiss National Bank President Philipp Hildebrand was forced to resign today under controversy over his wife’s currency trades. Hildebrand had been the architect of the cap on the Swiss Fran when he announced that he would not allow the Swiss Franc to strengthen beyond 1.2000 against the Euro. The SNB Governing body in a statement said that those measures would remain in place.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced today that they have reached an agreement over tough measures to balance budgets and encourage growth and create more jobs. Sarkozy said that the situation in Europe was tense. Merkel said that she did not want any country to leave the Euro zone. She warned that the crisis in Greece was not yet resolved and deterioration in the situation could be avoided by implementing the haircuts on Greek debt and putting together the second bailout package for Greece. The European Central Bank will meet later this week to announce its interest rate decision.
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