Stocks Ended Higher Yesterday, All Eyes On This Morning's Employment Report  Image: Bigstock Stocks closed sharply higher yesterday, making up much of the lost ground from the day before. Wednesday's FOMC announcement and subsequent press conference, where Jerome Powell said it was unlikely they'd cut rates in March, weighed on stocks on Wednesday. But overnight, people likely realized that not cutting in March doesn't mean no rate cuts at all, but rather it'll just begin a month or two later in May or June. Stocks were quickly bid up yesterday. And based on yesterday's earnings after the close, there's a good chance we'll see that again today. After the bell yesterday, Amazon reported earnings and posted a positive EPS surprise of 24.7%, and a positive sales surprise of 2.23%. That translates to a 381% quarterly EPS growth rate vs. last year at this time, and a 13.9% sales growth. They were up 2.63% in the regular session before earnings. And they were up another 8% following earnings in after-hours trade.
Meta reported after the close and posted a positive EPS surprise of 10.4%, and a positive sales surprise of 2.86%. That equates to a 77.7% quarterly EPS growth rate vs. 4 quarters ago, and a 24.7% sales growth. They also announced their first ever dividend of 50 cents payable on March 26. They were up 1.19% in the regular session before earnings, and then jumped another 14% afterwards in after-hours trade. And Apple reported earnings after the close and posted a positive EPS surprise of 4.31%, and a positive sales surprise of 1.66%. That represented a 16.0% quarterly EPS growth rate vs. last year at this time, and a 2.07% sales growth. Although, concerns over weaker iPhone sales, and a decrease in sales growth in China (sales grew in every region but China (-13%), which is their 3rd largest market), weighed on shares in after-hours trade by -3%, after being up 1.33% before earnings. In other news, yesterday's PMI Manufacturing report came in better than expected at 50.7 vs. views for 50.3. The ISM Manufacturing Index rose to 49.1 vs. last month's 47.1 and the consensus for 47.4. And Construction Spending was up 0.9% m/m, which was the same as last month's pace, but beat estimates for 0.5%. On a y/y basis it was up 13.9% vs. last month's upwardly revised print of 12.8% (from 11.3%).
Weekly Jobless Claims rose 9,000 to 224,000 vs. the consensus for 214,000. And the Challenger Job-Cut Report jumped to 82,307 announced layoffs vs. last month's 34,817. Today we'll get Factory Orders, and Consumer Sentiment. And the jobs report everybody's been waiting for which is the Employment Situation report. It's expected to show 170,000 new jobs were created last month (142,000 in the private sector and 28,000 in the public). The unemployment rate is expected to tick up to 3.8% from last month's 3.7%. And average hourly earnings are expected to moderate to 0.3% m/m vs. last month's 0.4%, while the y/y change is expected to come in at 4.1%, in line with last month's pace. That comes out at 8:30 AM ET. We're off to a good start this year with January showing gains of 1.22% for the Dow, 1.59% for the S&P, and 1.85% for the Nasdaq 100. And even though we're only one day into February (today makes it day two), we're off to a good start this month. If all goes well today, we might very well see another up week this week, which would make it 4 up weeks in a row. We shall see. Best,  Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research | 
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