Stock Market Today: Financials Hold Back Dow in Mixed Friday Session
Negative post-earnings reactions in some bank stocks, as well as a lousy December retail sales report, weighed on the industrial average.


The fourth-quarter earnings season began in earnest Friday, but Wall Street's latest performance metrics did little to invigorate the bulls and saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average finish in the red.
A bevy of blue-chip financial stocks put up mostly strong Q4 headline numbers before the opening bell, but other factors contributed to mixed results in their shares.
Wells Fargo (WFC, +3.7%) reported an 86% year-over-year pop in quarterly net income, while revenues and earnings per share both topped analyst expectations.

Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free E-Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.
Dow component JPMorgan Chase (JPM, -6.2%) delivered similar beats on the back of a 28% jump in investment-banking revenues, but investors turned tail after CFO Jeremy Barnum said in a conference call that the company likely will fall short of its 17% target for returns on capital thanks to headwinds including higher expenses and stabilizing trading revenue.
Citigroup (C, -1.3%) exceeded top- and bottom-line estimates, too, though Q4 profits were off by 26%.
Also weighing on sentiment was a wide miss by December retail sales, with a 1.9% month-over-month decline coming in far worse than expectations for a mere 0.1% slip.
"The bulk of this decline came from the control group (core) category, with sales down a sharp 3.1% month-over-month," says Barclays economist Pooja Sriram. "These prints follow from downward revisions to the November data, and in our view, suggest a stronger pull-forward of sales into October, as households likely accelerated their Christmas shopping in view of widespread warnings in the press about goods shortages and shipping delays."
But she adds that it's hard to attribute all of December's decline to this effect.
"Instead, we believe there are likely transitory effects on demand at play, due to the Omicron variant, which likely affected spending on categories such as restaurants and in-store purchases," she says, adding that elevated inflation and waning government transfers have also weighed on households' inflation-adjusted disposable incomes.
"The retail sales number was ugly, there's no getting around it, especially since these numbers are nominal and not adjusted for inflation," says Cliff Hodge, Chief Investment Officer for Cornerstone Wealth, adding that "it's tough to say how much of the miss is related to inflation impacts."
The Dow took the worst of it, dropping 0.6% to 35,911. The S&P 500 managed a marginal gain to 4,662, and the Nasdaq Composite posted a decent 0.6% improvement to 14,893. All three indexes finished in the red for the full week.
A reminder: The stock market is closed Monday, Jan. 17, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Other news in the stock market today:
- The small-cap Russell 2000 managed a 0.1% improvement to 2,162.
- Growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine helped drive up U.S. crude oil futures, which settled 2.1% higher to $83.82 per barrel.
- Gold futures settled 0.3% lower at $1,816.50 per ounce.
- Bitcoin managed to squeak out a 0.7% improvement to $43,125.86. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.)
- Sherwin-Williams (SHW, -2.8%) was another earnings loser Friday. The company announced preliminary Q4 earnings results that were below what Wall Street was looking for. The company expects to earn $1.35 per share on revenues of $4.76 billion during its Q4, but the pros are looking for EPS of $1.69 on sales of $4.77 billion. Moreover, the company is now looking for full-year profits of $8.15 per share, which is lower than both its previous guidance of $8.35 to $8.55 per share, and analyst expectations for $8.48.
What Does 2022 Have in Store for Crypto?
The adrenaline junkies among us might want to keep a close eye on cryptocurrencies in 2022.
The asset class is coming off a transformative 2021 – one that saw digital coins ascend from small, speculative investments to … well, much larger, but still predominantly speculative investments. Cryptocurrencies ballooned from an $800 billion collective market cap at the start of 2021 to $2.25 trillion by year's end, so roughly a triple in a short 12 months' time.
We've already explored the best opportunities in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds for the year ahead; as we near the end of our annual previews, we turn toward crypto. Will digital currencies have nearly as productive a 2022 as last year? And if so, which coins are likeliest to drive those gains?
Read on as we explore the outlook for cryptocurrencies in 2022.
Get Kiplinger Today newsletter — free
Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger's advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more. Delivered daily. Enter your email in the box and click Sign Me Up.
Kyle Woodley is the Editor-in-Chief of WealthUp, a site dedicated to improving the personal finances and financial literacy of people of all ages. He also writes the weekly The Weekend Tea newsletter, which covers both news and analysis about spending, saving, investing, the economy and more.
Kyle was previously the Senior Investing Editor for Kiplinger.com, and the Managing Editor for InvestorPlace.com before that. His work has appeared in several outlets, including Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, Barchart, The Globe & Mail and the Nasdaq. He also has appeared as a guest on Fox Business Network and Money Radio, among other shows and podcasts, and he has been quoted in several outlets, including MarketWatch, Vice and Univision. He is a proud graduate of The Ohio State University, where he earned a BA in journalism.
You can check out his thoughts on the markets (and more) at @KyleWoodley.
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Gain on Tech, Auto Tariff Talk
The Trump administration said late Friday that it will temporarily halt tariffs on some Chinese tech imports.
By Karee Venema
-
Sam's Club Plans Aggressive Expansion: Discover Its New Locations
Sam's Club expansion plans will open up to 15 new stores each year. Learn where they plan to open in 2025.
By Sean Jackson
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Gain on Tech, Auto Tariff Talk
The Trump administration said late Friday that it will temporarily halt tariffs on some Chinese tech imports.
By Karee Venema
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Surge to Close a Volatile Week
It was another day with a week's worth of both news and price action, but it ended on a strongly positive note.
By David Dittman
-
Stock Market Today: Uncertainty Proliferates: Dow Loses 1,014 Points
Weaker-than-expected consumer inflation data wasn't enough to stabilize sentiment during another volatile day for financial markets.
By David Dittman
-
Stock Market Today: Dow Rises 854 Points From Its Intraday Low
If there's one thing markets hate, it's uncertainty. But uncertainty is all they're getting these days.
By David Dittman
-
Stock Market Today: Markets Celebrate Trump's Tariff Détente
Consumer discretionary stocks led 10 of the 11 S&P 500 sector groups well into the green.
By David Dittman
-
Stock Market Today: Stocks Struggle After Big Fed Gains
An unexpected rise in existing home sales couldn't save stocks on Thursday.
By Karee Venema
-
4 Turnaround Stocks to Consider – and 2 More to Keep an Eye On
A turnaround stock is a struggling company with a strong makeover plan that can pay off for intrepid investors.
By Nellie S. Huang
-
Best Investments to Sidestep Trump's Trade War
These ETFs are well-designed to weather rising U.S. protectionism and retaliatory tariffs.
By Jeff Reeves