Alcoa, which unofficially kicks off the earnings season, sets a good tone for Q3 profits but doesn’t beat analysts’ forecast. Due to the market’s strong performance in Q3, Wall Street’s expectation for corporate profits has been set very high. So any company that deviates in the least from forecast is bound to be punished. The market still manages to close a shave higher.
Windows Vista. Office 2007. Zune. Xbox games galore. A pipeline of new products from a software giant usually excites Wall Street. So I’m baffled by MSFT’s decline in four straight sessions. It must be Google’s acquisition of YouTube, after all the video sharing portal does compete with MSN Video. The all stock deal is probably worse for Yahoo; nevertheless, it’s supposed to be all about MSFT right now. Once the Street digests the acquisition, I expect MSFT to regain its footing.
I look forward to COST’s earnings call on Thursday. Over the past month, the stock has been neither here nor there – 10 advances and 11 declines, and I expect some tough questions from analysts.
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