Shares of mcdonalds fell 4. 5 after reporting weaker than expected earnings and revenues. The fast food giant also said Earnings Growth will be quote pressured going forward. Profits were up at General Electric, but revenues came in below analyst estimates and g. E. Also warned of a tough economic environment. The stock slid 3. 5 . Nervousness about the outlook for Technology Companies pulled down stocks. Microsoft and google, both reported disappointing earnings yesterday. By the closing bell, the dow lost 205 points or 1. 5 . The tech heavy nasdaq really got slammed down 67 points and, the s p 500 dropped 24. The problem is there doesnt seem to be any real tolerance for when a company misses. So, you can have decent bottom line growth, but if the revenue side is light or if the guidance even has a tinge of negativity to it, there doesnt seem to be any mercy, which simply probably tells us in a broad sense that stocks are to a large extent almost priced to perfection. Susie Corporate
Points, sending markets to levels not seen since early september. The heavy selling came after several household names reported weak Quarterly Financial reports and lowered their expectations for the rest of the year. 3m, dupont, and xerox were among those releasing disappointing results. Erika miller reports worries about revenues have cast a shadow over the profit picture. Reporter yes, its earnings season. But earnings are not the most important indicator this quarter. Its revenues how much money a Company Makes before expenses. Profits can go down, profits can go up. Sales, you want to see nice steady growth. And when you are seeing big drops in revenues and revenue misses, thats definitely a red flag. Reporter in the latest quarter, a slew of big name firms have reported higher earnings but lower revenues, including bank of america, ibm, 3m, morgan stanley, oracle, and walgreens. For most, the biggest problem is europe, where many countries are in recession. It doesnt help that th
To compromise the Capital Position of the bank in any way. Reporter also today, ten major banks, including bank of america settled claims they abused the foreclosure system, seizing defaulted homes without proper paperwork. The banks agreed to fix those abuses two years ago, with a casebycase review of foreclosure practices. But that just wasnt moving fast enough, and proved too costly. Bring in todays deal the banks will pay a total of 8. 5 billion. Three billion of that will go to homeowners hurt by the banks; the rest, five billion to assistance programs like loan refinancing, for homeowners who are struggling. It helps current homeowners and its going to help the marketplace at the margin. You know, the con, if there is one, is the fact that well never, it will make it less likely now that well ever get a full accounting of the foreclosure irregularities that existed. And how widespread were they, what were the types of irregularities and what were the full dollar amounts. Reporter
So secretary lew would have to make a decision. He could recommend the president continue business as usual ignoring the debt limit, borrowing money and paying the bills. As justification, lew could say the president had to choose between conflicting Laws Congress has passed requiring him to spend money and not spend it at the same time. At that point, i assume someone who would claim to be an injured party would bring suit and the federal government, if you can imagine this and the congress would find themselves before the Supreme Court arguing under what circumstances the debt of the United States should be paid or could be paid. It gets into really nasty stuff. Reporter but veterans of washingtons budget battles say the rhetoric jack lew will face will be much nastier than the ultimate outcome. The debt ceiling is going to be an ugly fight, perhaps as ugly or even uglier than what we went through at the end of last year, but the real fight is not over the debt ceiling, the real figh
Time. Hes a tough dude and i think he is there because theres a knowledge that were going to have a lot of these debates for a while and we look forward to working with him. Reporter while lew is often called the smartest man in the room on the budget, he is a newcomer to Global Financial issues. One of his Biggest Challenges will be convincing other countries to cooperate as they seek to rein in their budget deficits. If the united states, germany, japan and the United Kingdom all cut spending at the same time, theyll all have less money to spend buying goods from each other. And then all of our tax revenues decline because economies are slower then nobody is meeting their budget targets and then somebody else says, oh well, i better tighten up further and then the cycle starts over again. And the point is we do have to pay our bills eventually, but all of us doing it too fast makes it harder for each one of us to pay our bills. And so you need some kind of coordination to keep from m