Business News

JPMorgan result puts the bears into hiding

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by Peter Switzer

It’s early days in the US reporting season and for the bears it's not good news.

Some great results came out yesterday morning for optimists with Intel, the world’s greatest microprocessor producer (that’s the key thing inside your computer) beating estimates, particularly on the revenue side and their outlook call was promising.

A big boost

Then today, JPMorgan nailed its earnings per share result. The market experts thought 52 cents but the investment bank came in with, wait for it, 82 cents! That’s HUGE and explains why the Dow Jones smashed through the psychologically important 10,000 level.

Our market got a real kick yesterday from Intel and so expect a good one today following this result.

Locally, the good news is flowing with Rio Tinto pumping up its guidance for iron ore production and this has been driven by stronger demand, which shows the Stern Hu controversy has not hurt the company so far.

Higher and higher

Meanwhile, another corporate good news story came along yesterday with JB HiFi predicting that their full year sales will come in 20 per cent higher.

This should be no surprise for regular viewers of my SWITZER program on Sky News Business Channel with just about all my in-house experts tipping this stock. The GM of Sony Entertainment, Michael Ephraim, has told me that Playstation’s new product is set to have a big bang for Christmas and JB HiFi is a prolific seller of this kind of product. This Sony division actually increased sales throughout the GFC year!

By the way, these corporate good vibes stories are not just for specific share players' consumption. These revelations are another sign that our economy is strong and undoubtedly is getting stronger and will be doing it for longer!

Out of luck

Last night on my program, I said all eyes would go to Wall Street overnight where JPMorgan’s report was a must watch. And importantly this was one day after US banking expert Meredith Whitney went negative on US banks after being the key person to talk up bank stocks in March this year.

My final comment was: “I hope Meredith’s forecasting luck runs out”. It just might have and that’s a good thing for optimists and bulls.

For advice you can trust, contact Switzer Financial Services.

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Published on: Thursday, October 15, 2009