Market Awaits A Flood Of Q4 2018 Earnings Data

Morning pre-market trading is in the green again this morning, after a mostly up day overseas while we were sleeping. Plenty of new Q4 earnings reports are hitting the tape, and these follow yesterday afternoon’s results from Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) , which were good overall but left some questions regarding how much the company is currently spending.

Trade Balance data remains delayed following 5 weeks of a partial government shutdown; after the opening bell, we see two main services reads: PMI Services and ISM Non-Manufacturing for January. Last month we saw these figures reach 54.2 and 57.6%, respectively.

What’s most anticipated today has nothing directly to do with stock market activity: the State of the Union address from President Trump, itself delayed a week following the government shutdown. Investors will be playing close attention to the president’s comments on taxes, spending and congressional harmony (or lack thereof)

After regular-day trading is over today, we expect more quarterly earnings reports from companies like Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) , Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ:SWKS) and Snap, Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) . Ahead of the opening bell today, we see lots of new reads from companies across a wide spectrum of sectors:

Ralph Lauren (NYSE:RL) reported a solid quarter this morning, putting up $2.32 per share which easily surpassed the $2.15 expected. Revenues of $1.73 billion outperformed estimates by 3.6%. The apparel retailer has not missed quarterly earnings estimates since Q4 2014 — exactly four years ago. Ahead of Tuesday’s open, shares have rocketed up more than 7% following the earnings release.

British oil major BP (LON:BP) (NYSE:BP) posted big numbers for its most recent quarter: $1.04 in American Depositary Shares (ADS) on $76.9 billion in sales were both way up over expectations. Its Upstream business has brought much more oil online over the past two years, while Downstream business grew 68% year over year. Shares are up 3% so far in today’s pre-market.

MedTech company Becton, Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) came in-line on both top and bottom lines this morning, putting up $2.70 per share on $4.16 billion in revenues (this number was actually down 0.1% from projections). All major segments were up in the quarter, but nothing particularly surprised by an outperformance. Shares are flat ahead of the open.