Stocks Edge Up Amid Earnings Reports

Major market ETFs including NYSEARCA:SPY and NYSEARCA:DIA rose slightly yesterday despite fears over the many corporate earnings reports scheduled this week.  Part of the fear possibly comes from last week’s JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) 23% decline. Perhaps yesterday did not help either, as  Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) reported positive results and Citigroup (NYSE:C) reported negative results for fourth quarter 2012.  Either way, more earnings reports are due this week, including reports from Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Goldman Sacs (NYSE:GS) and American Express (NYSE:AXP). 

Financial ETFs sure seemed scared, as the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSEARCA:XLF) choked down a -.8% decrease.  Perhaps if Bank of America had not laid off over 30,000 employees last year, the financial sector would be less timid this earnings season.

The Tech stocks, however, performed beautifully yesterday, with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) leading the crowd with a 1.16% increase and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) pacing forward with a .5% increase.  The PowerShares QQQ Trust, Series 1 (NASDAQ:QQQ), followed along with a near 1% gain, while the technology SPDR ETF (NYSEARCA:XLK) also gained .50%.

In other news, the United States Natural Gas Fund LP (NYSEARCA:UNG) took a nose dive yesterday, while our friend oil (NYSEARCA:USO) closed at $100 per barrel.

Meanwhile, we have a busy week ahead of us: as mentioned above, we have several more corporate earnings reports, alongside a slew of economic reports including jobless claims, home builder’s index, the Philly Fed report, consumer price index, and housing starts.

In other news, and please do not act surprised, the World Bank has warned that the global economy could slow down. I can believe that because after all, Europe has a long way to go and China keeps sputtering.

Bottom Line:  This is a busy week with large amounts of economic indicators and data, but let us not forget that many problems are still lurking on the horizon, Europe especially being one of them.