Ahead of the Bell: Dow futures are trading down 18 points and S&P futures are trading down 4 points following strong gains in the previous trading session, on higher corporate earnings and investors optimism that the Euro zone debt crisis will be resolved. Finance ministers from the G20 meeting in Paris on Saturday pressed the EU to come up with a plan to stem the regions sovereign debt crisis. The Greek government is trying to persuade banks to take a larger write down in order for the debt laden nation to solve the financial crisis.
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Ahead of the Bell: Dow futures are trading up 103 points and S&P futures are trading up 10 points. Alcoa reported disappointing 3rd quarter results, and blames the global economic down turn that hurt demand and pushed metal prices lower, forcing the company to miss its profit forecast. Slovakia is the only country of the 17 member European Union to vote against the expansion of the Euro zone rescue fund. European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Olli Rehn said, the region is moving toward a consensus on resolving the sovereign debt crisis.
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“At stake is nothing less than the direction of U.S. stocks for the remainder of the year.” That was the warning from Nick Colas, ConvergEx’s Chief Market Strategist, in his morning note to investors. I like that line, not the scary omen part, but rather the way it perfectly describes the frenzied expectations of traders going into this earnings season.
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Q3 2011 earnings season began with Alcoa on Tuesday. The rest of this week will be light in terms of number of companies reporting (just 7 other S&P 500 companies scheduled to report); yet they will command significant media/investor attention. Given the current uncertain macro backdrop, this earnings season will be an important checkpoint for an updated management outlook.
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