Chad Hudson

Contributor since: 26 Feb 2010

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• Retail Sales Cool

  Published 17 February 2005 | viewed 3,766 times

  UNEDITED Retail sales in January slipped 0.3% from December, excluding autos, sales increased 0.6%. On a year-over-year basis, retail sales advanced 4.5%, this was the…

• Bubblin' Crude Lifts Earnings

  Published 10 February 2005 | viewed 4,018 times

  UNEDITED Earnings season finally comes to a close this week. Retailing companies are about the only group that is left to report fourth quarter earnings.…

• Higher Interest Rates and Slower Earnings Growth

  Published 03 February 2005 | viewed 6,219 times

  UNEDITED The Federal Reserve increased its target rate by 25 basis points to 2.5%. This was the sixth consecutive increase. The Fed only omitted the…

• Costs Are Pressuring Margins

  Published 27 January 2005 | viewed 4,467 times

  UNEDITED The second week of earnings season is dominating investors interest. Companies have been beating earnings estimates. By Wednesday night, 196 S&P 500 companies had…

• Will The Economy Continue to Drive Earnings?

  Published 20 January 2005 | viewed 3,143 times

  Investors are focused on fourth quarter earnings this week, but the release of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book and CPI report on Wednesday offered brief…

• Play Me An iTune

  Published 13 January 2005 | viewed 3,074 times

  UNEDITED Since the fourth quarter started, earnings estimates for the S&P 500 have declined slightly. On October 1, analysts expected earnings to increase 15.5% during…

• Another Twenty-Five Basis Points

  Published 16 December 2004 | viewed 3,358 times

  UNEDITED Surprising nobody, the Federal Reserve increased the fed funds target rate by 25 basis points to 2.25%. This was the fifth consecutive rate hike.…

• Waiting For The Sales

  Published 09 December 2004 | viewed 3,127 times

  UNEDITED The breather holiday shoppers took after Black Friday continued during the first full week of holiday shopping. Retail sales increased by 3.3% from the…

• A Mixed Picture

  Published 02 December 2004 | viewed 2,858 times

  UNEDITED There was a lot of economic data released this week that continued the string of strong economic data. On Monday, third quarter GDP was…

• Heads - I Win, Tails - You Lose

  Published 25 November 2004 | viewed 2,781 times

  UNEDITED! Several housing indicators were released over the past week that confirmed the housing market remained robust in October. During the beginning of the month…

• Is Sears a Blue Light Special?

  Published 18 November 2004 | viewed 3,145 times

  Retailers have been in the spotlight this week. Several large retailers reported earnings this week, but it was the announcement that K-Mart will purchase Sears…

• Another 25 Basis Points, How Many Left?

  Published 11 November 2004 | viewed 3,070 times

  After several months of lackluster labor markets the US economy finally added a significant number of jobs. According to the October employment situation report, 337,000…

• Investors Exhale

  Published 04 November 2004 | viewed 3,156 times

  UNEDITED With earnings season and the elections over, investors breathed a sigh of relief. The Bush victory is perceived bullish for stocks and third quarter…

• Earnings Season Winds Down

  Published 28 October 2004 | viewed 2,469 times

  UNEDITED Earnings reports have poured in over the past two weeks, that have generally met or exceeded earnings estimates. Of the 334 S&P 500 companies…

• Raw Materials Rubbing Companies Raw

  Published 21 October 2004 | viewed 3,096 times

  Third quarter earnings season got in full force this week. There are 179 of the S&P 500 that report earnings this week, and 136 next…

• Earnings Roll In

  Published 14 October 2004 | viewed 2,713 times

  UNEDITED On Wednesday, prices for base metals plunged. Copper fell 11%, lead dropped 6%, nickel sunk 17%, tin declined 6% and zinc fell 7%. The…

• Cracks Appear In Housing

  Published 07 October 2004 | viewed 3,833 times

  UNEDITED The second quarter of this year was one of the rare times in recent history that gross private investment contributed more to GDP growth…

• Revising Down

  Published 30 September 2004 | viewed 2,649 times

  Last week, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes fell to a 6.54 million annualized rate from 6.72 million last month.…

• Is Growth Waning?

  Published 16 September 2004 | viewed 2,909 times

  UNEDITED Retail sales fell 0.3% in August according to the report published by the Commerce Department this week. The drop was due to a 1.9%…

• Economic Flux

  Published 09 September 2004 | viewed 3,688 times

  UNEDITED Last week was capped off by the August employment report that revealed 144,000 jobs were added. While slightly lower than the 150,000 jobs economists…