Basically all the stocks’ performance depends on one factor – consumers. It’s a no-brainer statement but many investors or traders tend to forget this. Every sector from airlines to healthcare would be affected, one way or another. Let’s look at the big brother Uncle Sam. According to Thomson Reuters the U.S. corporate profit outlook doesn’t looks well and with the second quarter earning season around the corner, profits are expected to fall at a rate of 10.2 percent thanks to financials and soaring gasoline prices.

United Parcel Service Inc, the world’s largest package-delivery company with market capitalization of over $63 billion cut its second-quarter profit outlook citing high fuel costs and a slack U.S. economy. FedEx Corp didn’t do any better when it posted a quarterly loss and gave a weak profit outlook for its fiscal 2009. Financial sector is still licking wounds from subprime foray. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his gang is expected to keep talking tough about inflation but will not do anything to the interest rate for the time being.

The only thing that Bernanke would not like to see is a repeat of 1970s crisis when the Feds allowed inflation to get out of control and only contained after Paul Volcker pushed up the interest rate thereafter. With the Dow Jones floating aimlessly below 12,000 it’s doubly hard to bet on stocks based on earnings. I’m not saying all the stocks would suffer but you need to check from more barometers to make fast bucks trading stocks or options betting on earnings. Too much short-sells contracts and you better watch your back even if the stocks have been consistently beat earnings estimates.

By the way, there’s a small achievement here over at FinanceTwitter when this blog hit the 1,000 posts milestone. Started on Oct 2006 FinanceTwitter survived the last 21 months of blogging averaging 1.6 posts or articles per day, till today.

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June 25th, 2008 by financetwitter

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