Stocks gapped up and stayed in the green Monday as crude oil prices fell sharply on signs of restraint in the still-developing Iran-Israel conflict in the Middle East. The major indexes resumed their long march higher after a six-week winning streak ended on Friday, a day before the Magnificent 7 segment of earnings reporting season begins. Indeed, with 169 of the S&P 500 set to report earnings, this will be the busiest week of third-quarter reporting season.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 0.7% to 42,387. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3%, finishing the regular trading session at 18,567. And the S&P 500 added 0.3% to 5,823.
Bond yields continued to rise, with the 10-year Treasury yield climbing nearly seven basis points intraday to 4.3%, its highest level since July, even in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve's first interest rate cut since 2020. The central bank is in a quiet period until the conclusion of the Federal Open Committee Meeting at 2 pm Eastern time on Thursday, November 7.
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Instead, market participants will look to this week's busy economic calendar for hints on what the central bank will do at next week's meeting.
Monday was quiet on the economic data front, though investors will consider consumer confidence data from The Conference Board on Tuesday, advance third-quarter GDP (gross domestic product) numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Wednesday, the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index (PCE) from the BEA on Thursday, and the October nonfarm payrolls report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.
It's (still) all about the Magnificent 7
Amid the penultimate week of the U.S. presidential election campaign, markets will also evaluate quarterly results from five of the Magnificent 7. Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) will lead things off on the earnings calendar after Tuesday's close. Analysts expect the company to post earnings per share of $1.84 on revenue of $86 billion.
Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) will report after the close on Wednesday, and Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN) will report after Thursday's close.
Analysts will be looking at capital expenditures budgets, including management commentary and guidance, from four of the Magnificent 7 for hints on Nvidia's (NVDA) current and future operating environment.
Nvidia, which was down 0.7% on Monday but is still trading within 3% of its all-time high, has surged 250% over the trailing 12 months and remains a critical bellwether as the use and deployment of artificial intelligence continues. Nvidia will report its fiscal 2025 third-quarter earnings after the closing bell on November 20.
S&P earnings so far
Through Friday, according to FactSet Senior Earnings Analyst John Butters, 37% of the S&P 500 had reported earnings so far this season. As Butters notes, of that number "75% have reported a positive EPS surprise and 59% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive revenue surprise."
Year-over-year earnings per share growth is averaging 3.6%, which would mark the fifth straight quarter of annual growth for the index if it holds.
"Given continuing concerns in the market about inflation," Butters writes, "what is the S&P 500 reporting for a net profit margin for Q3?" According to Butters, the blended net profit margin for the S&P 500 is 12%, "below the previous quarter's net profit margin of 12.2% and below the year-ago net profit margin of 12.2%, but above the five-year average of 11.5%."
This is the second consecutive quarter that the S&P 500 is reporting a net profit margin at or above 12%. The last time the index reported two straight quarters of net profit margins of 12% or higher was Q1 2022 and Q2 2022.
Information technology (25% versus 24%) leads the three sectors reporting year-over-year net profit margin growth, while the energy sector (8% versus 11%) is the worst among seven sectors reporting year-over-year declines.
Energy and other old-school stocks
Energy was the only one of the 11 official sectors to close in the red, declining 0.8% as U.S. crude oil futures fell by 6% to settle at $67.38 per barrel. Chevron (CVX) was down 0.2%, while fellow integrated giant Exxon Mobil (XOM) was off 0.5%. Chevron and Exxon will report earnings before the opening bell on Friday.
3M (MMM) led the 30-stock, price-weighted Dow Jones, rising more than 4% after JPMorgan analyst Stephen Tusa reiterated his Overweight rating on the stock and raised his 12-month price target to $165 from $160 – representing implied upside of more than 25% to current levels.
Tusa, who boosted his target from $130 to $160 just two weeks ago, said on CNBC's Halftime Report that his upside case for MMM is based on "things going pretty well for them off of depressed levels.
"As the great Judge Smales once said," Tusa observed on CNBC, citing the notorious "Caddyshack" character played by Ted Knight, "the world needs ditch-diggers too."
MMM, Tusa notes, has been one of the most dramatic underperformers among industrial stocks over the past half-decade. "We think it's bottomed, with a new management team and a compelling story around productivity and margins."
Even with the Magnificent 7 and the AI buildout story capturing the market's imagination, investors will weigh management commentary on the impact of a recent E. coli outbreak on McDonald's (MCD) top and bottom lines Tuesday morning.
MCD rebounded on Monday, rising more than 1% ahead of its earnings report.
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