Futures are trading above fair values this morning as Wall Street prepares for a strong start to the day. There are two main factors at work today, strong earnings from computer giant Dell Computer (NASDAQ: DELL), and positive economic data on consumer spending that came out this morning. DELL reported its first quarter numbers last night, and easily beat analyst estimates for the quarter, showing earnings of 38 cents per share, which ...

General Electric (GE) missed its first quarter estimates this morning. The mega conglomerate cited the slowing economy as the main factor, and that it virtually drained the company's financial services  business. The company reported EPS of 44 cents, which was well below the 51 cents that earnings tracker Thomson First Call analysts had been expecting to see. This is an 8% drop from the same period last year. Revenue was up a ...

Gasoline prices moved up overnight to set a new record high last night... the second record high in as many days. According to AAA, the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded has now reached record levels of $3.303 for a gallon. The current price of gasoline has been rising in reaction to the recent run up of oil prices and the weak dollar, and resulted in a 22% jump ...

March was another tough month for employees, as recession fears in America led to 80,000 jobs being slashed across the country. Looking at total unemployment, the unemployment rate for the country rose from 4.8% up to 5.1%. This could be one of the biggest signals that the country has already been contracting. This is the highest rate that the country has seen since back in September 2005 when the country was ...

This morning we were seeing the markets in the red, but they were given a bit of relief following Fed Chaiman Ben Bernanke's testimony to Congress today. Ironically, it was Bernanke himself that had initially put the markets into the red when he stated that there was a decent chance that the U.S. economy would contract during the first half of this year. With all the recession rumors and fears floating ...

Consumer confidence has fallen to levels that we have not seen for nearly 35 years. According to the Confidence Board, consumer confidence in March has dropped to 64.5, a level not seen since the Nixon administration. There are three main factors contributing to the erosion of consumer confidence currently; falling stock prices, falling home values, and finally... the dollar setting record lows against the euro. It seems like everyday we turn ...

Wall Street is ready to open very rocky today as investors push the panic button after a weekend full of worrisome news. Over the weekend we were given the news that financial institute Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) was being bought by JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) for a ridiculously low purchase price of $2 a share. At $2 a share, that is an amazing 99% lower than where the stock was trading just ...

Oil prices had been retreating earlier in the day, but after the release of this weeks inventory report from the U.S. Energy Department prices have reversed and the bulls are pushing prices well into the green on the day. Currently the precious crude has traded up $1.05 to $86.32. Before today's report, analysts had been expecting to see an increase of around 300,000 barrels of oil, but the report actually showed ...

Wall Street has been trading lower today, mostly in reaction to poor earnings out of Banc of America (NYSE: BAC). The financial giant had been expected to post earnings for its third quarter of $1.06, but were shocked when the company posted actual earnings of only 82 cents a share. The company attributed its 32 percent drop in third quarter profit to trading losses and write-downs on a wide variety of ...

The market is selling off a bit today. As of the middle of the trading session, we are looking at the following Symbol Last Change Dow 14,058.29 29.26 (0.21%) Nasdaq 2,739.49 1.50 (0.05%) The main reason for why the market is falling today can be traced back to a weak Home Sale Forecast Index that came out today, only emphasizing the current woes on the housing market that we have been dealing with over the past several months. ...