Forbes editors and reporters recap the past week, from Ben Bernanke to financial regulation and faltering restaurant stocks, then look ahead to upcoming earnings from the likes of Apple and Facebook. Click below to watch:
Stocks had a rough finish to what was shaping up as a decent week. Chipotle landed with the biggest thud, plunging 21.5% after disappointing revenue Thursday, while Advanced Micro Devices dropped 13.2% after a disappointing second quarter of its own. Morgan Stanley, which reported poor profits of its own Thursday, lost another 3.6%.
The major indexes finished right near session lows Friday, about 1% in the red. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 121 points, or 0.9%, to 12,823, the S&P 500 14 points, or 1%, to 1,363 and the Nasdaq 41 points, or 1.4%, to 2,925. For the week, the Dow and S&P each managed to gain 0.4%, while the Nasdaq added 0.6%.
Earnings season has been mixed to date, with better-than-expected profits masking underlying weakness across a number of industries owing largely to the slowing recovery in the U.S., less rapid expansions of growth in emerging markets and the ongoing turmoil in Europe. According to FactSet, though 74% of the 104 S&P 500 companies to report earnings have exceeded the consensus per-share estimate, only 45% have beaten revenue expectations. That marks the lowest level at this stage of earnings season since the first quarter of 2009, when the market hit its nadir and the U.S. economy was still mired in recession.
