Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The first day after one of the worst trading weeks in years, markets zoomed back up Monday — the Dow gained 669 points, or nearly 3%, after dropping 1400 points during last week’s tariff scare. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 are looking for their first back-to-back gains in more than 2 weeks. Right now, the Dow is still more than 3% down for the month of March, the S&P -2%.
By now, we are pretty used to such wildly volatile turns in the market. These fluctuations also have moved on mere speculation of actualized events — for instance, it was mostly just President Trump saying out loud he wanted to put forth steel and aluminum tariffs that set the markets into a tizzy in the first place; yesterday’s reassurance from Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin that he’s “cautiously hopeful” the U.S. and China will arrive at a new trade deal was also not based on anything particularly concrete.
That said, we’ll take it. In one day, the market nearly halved its losses from last week’s barn-burner. Should this positive sentiment continue — and at this stage in Tuesday’s pre-market there’s little in the way; even Chinese Premier Li has expressed a hopefulness for a new trade deal, and some analysts here at home have suggested all this tariff talk is just a blunt negotiation tool — we might find ourselves seeing last week in the rearview mirror. The markets have already dug out of correction territory.
January Case-Shiller
Some of the stalest — yet most accurate — information on the U.S. housing market comes from the monthly Case-Shiller report, which brought forth gains of 6.2% gains in January, a tick above estimates of 6.1%. Considering we have seen some question marks regarding the housing market looking into the future (and rising interest rates will make mortgages less appealing to obtain), a reassuring number like this might also see favorable treatment in today’s market. At very least, this will rock no boats.
McCormick Spices Up Q1 Earnings
Baltimore, MD-based McCormick & Co. MKC, the ubiquitous leader in spices and herbs in the U.S., beat expectations on both top and bottom lines in its fiscal Q1 earnings report (ended February) released this morning. Earnings of $1.00 per share topped the 91 cents in the Zacks Consensus Estimate, while revenues of roughly $1.24 billion met expectations. The Zacks Rank #3 (Hold)-rated company demonstrated 32% earnings growth year over year, and +18.5% on the top line.
Guidance was also ratcheted up for full year 2018 earnings, to a range of $4.85-4.95 per share. This amounts to a 14-16% gain year over year. For more on MKC’s earnings, click here.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
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