Trader Talk

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange, June 5, 2019. Brendan McDermid | Reuters Tuesday marks the halfway mark — more than half of the S&P 500 has reported second half earnings. The good news: 1) Second quarter earnings are providing few surprises — earnings are beating estimates by the usual

A man passes a Louis Vuitton store in Macau, China, on Friday, Dec. 10, 2010. Daniel J. Groshong | Bloomberg | Getty Images The impact on earnings from the slowdown in China and the ongoing trade war is not uniform. Halfway through the earnings season, company reports show the much-feared collapse in guidance for the

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Brendan McDermid | Reuters After a record 2018, buybacks so far in 2019 are strong but just below 2018’s record, according to a new report from J.P. Morgan. As buybacks hit records last year (about $800 billion) a predictable political backlash developed. Corporations

ASML Holding Semiconductor company logo seen displayed on smart phone. ASML is a Dutch company and currently the largest supplier in the world of photolithography systems for the semiconductor industry. ( SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images Could the news get any worse for semiconductors? First the global slowdown clobbered them at the end

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a bilateral meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping during the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. Kevin Lamarque | Reuters Citigroup kicks off earnings season on Monday. Traders enter with a singular focus on company guidance. Bears believe second-half guidance will be cautious and lower than expected

Sir Richard Branson walks around the new Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo at its roll out in the Mojave Desert, about a year and a half after Virgin’s last rocket plane broke into pieces and killed the test pilot. Al Seib | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images There’s lots of excitement that tech superstar Chamath Palihapitiya’s

Visa Inc. credit and debit cards are arranged for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, April 22, 2019. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images The S&P 500 tops 3,000. What a difference five years makes. The S&P has moved 50% in less than 5 years, from 2,000 on August 26, 2014, to

Norma Butterfield, mother of Slack Technologies CEO Stewart Butterfield, rings a ceremonial bell along with New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) President Stacey Cunningham during the Slack direct listing in New York, U.S. June 20, 2019. Brendan McDermid | Reuters Casey Stengel once said, “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” If you’re looking to prove

NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 24: Traders and financial professionals work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the opening bell, April 24, 2019 in New York City. U.S. stocks started the trading day mixed, following Tuesday’s closing record highs for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Drew Angerer | Getty Images

FAANG stocks displayed at the Nasdaq. Adam Jeffery | CNBC We’re nearing the end of the second quarter, with the S&P 500 notching a gain of nearly 3% this quarter and 16% for the first half. But the gains are not evenly distributed. A few of the the largest stocks by market capitalization are leading

The Slack Technologies application is displayed on an Apple iPhone in an arranged photograph taken in Arlington, Virginia on Monday, April 29, 2019. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images Workplace-messaging firm Slack is about to go public in a red-hot IPO market, but it’s approach to going public — using a “direct listing” —

Ethan Brown, founder and chief executive officer of Beyond Meat Inc., center, rings the opening bell during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, U.S., on Thursday, May 2, 2019. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images The IPO market keeps getting hotter, but how much more juice is

America’s retirement accounts are growing, but not fast enough. Vanguard has released its annual How America Saves 2019 report. It’s a snapshot of the state of retirement in America that focuses on defined benefit accounts, which are mostly in the form of 401(k)s. Here’s the good news: 1. Despite the market downturn in 2018 (the

Traders work under monitors displaying 3M Co. signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images The trade wars have now become real. Bulls like to point to the fact that the S&P 500 is only 4.5% off its historic high, but

The IPO market is off to an exceptionally strong start, after a two-month hiatus around the government shutdown. According to Renaissance Capital, 42 IPOs have priced this year. The average first-day pop has been 22%, well above the average of 13% to 15%. The above-average performance extends beyond the first day of trading. About 62%

Traders work on the floor at the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Bryan R. Smith | AFP | Getty Images The markets have woken up to two facts: The odds of a tariff increase on Friday are much higher than the market had estimated and stocks will be dramatically overvalued if this

Art Cashin David A. Grogan | CNBC Stocks are hitting resistance now, and it’s about time. The S&P 500 surged 40 points in just six days, hitting historic highs on Tuesday, but we’ve already given up most of those gains, down 30 points since the open on Wednesday. You can blame oil’s drop for part

Traders and financial professionals work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) ahead of the opening bell, January 4, 2019 in New York City. Drew Angerer | Getty Images It is May, but this year don’t sell and get out just yet. The “Best Six Months” strategy has become legendary on Wall

Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United States. Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images We’re at the half-way mark for first quarter earnings. With 261 companies reporting in the S&P 500, earnings are up 0.7% on a blended rate, according to Refinitiv. “We have avoided an earnings recession —

SEC Chief Jay Clayton, who is in charge of protecting American investors, has strong thoughts on what Americans need to do to save for an adequate retirement. Clayton will appear on The Exchange with Kelly Evans and myself Friday at 1 p.m. ET to talk about the SEC’s job to protect American investors, maintain fair,

The earnings recession is not happening. Despite disappointments from MMM, Q1 earnings for the S&P 500 are now expected to be flat for the first quarter after dire predictions in December. Strong reports from Facebook and Microsoft and CNBC parent Comcast were the key to raising S&P 500 earnings estimates from down 2.5% two weeks

The markets are at new highs, so why does it feel like August? The large beats on earnings from companies as diverse as Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, Pulte and Whirlpool are propelling the S&P 500 to a new high. In addition to earnings well above expectations, we see China bottoming, Europe at least showing some

The markets are at new highs, but it doesn’t feel that way. Large earnings beats from companies as diverse at Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, PulteGroup and Whirlpool are propelling the S&P 500 to a new high. In addition to earnings well above expectations, we see China bottoming, Europe showing at least some signs of stability

It was all so damn long ago: CNBC was born on April 17, 1989, the product of a gamble by NBC President Bob Wright and Tom Rogers, President of NBC Cable, both of whom took a whacky bet that a cable television network devoted to the rather nebulous concept of a “Consumer News and Business

Early earnings returns from the first quarter are in, and there is a clear warning: higher wage costs, higher raw material costs, and higher transport costs are weighing on earnings. There’s good and bad news as we enter the heart of earnings season. Good news: companies continue to report earnings well above expectations. It’s the

Stocks are rallying around the world on two headlines that support the bull thesis: strong China economic data and J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s supportive comments on the U.S. economy. U.S. stock futures and European equities gained strongly around midday ET, and bond yields rose as China released data after the close of markets there

Quraterly earnings for the S&P 500 are expected to decline for the first time since the second quarter of 2016, even though the index is just 2% from its historic high. First-quarter earnings for the S&P 500 are projected to decline 2.5% from last year, according to Refinitiv consensus estimates. Stocks up with earnings down?

April is National Financial Literacy Month, but this week is National Retirement Planning Week, which means it’s time for yet another round of depressing statistics about how unprepared we all are for retirement. Let’s focus on Baby Boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964. That means this group is between 55 and 73 years

In a sign IPO sellers are not tone-deaf, Pinterest is pricing its 75 million share IPO at $15-$17 a share, which at the $17 range would raise $1.3 billion and value the company at below the $12 billion it was valued at during its last round of fundraising in 2017. By contrast, ride hailing service

Semiconductors are killing it, and you can thank China. The Semiconductor ETF (SMH) is just shy of the historic high it hit a year ago, and there’s good reason for it: China. The five S&P companies with the biggest exposure to China are all semiconductors. Qualcomm, Micron, Qorvo, Broadcom, and Texas Instruments all get 40%