Salesforce beats earnings estimates by a wide margin and then announced layoffs for roughly 1,000 of its employees. People haven’t gone through this rollercoaster ride of emotions since watching “Titanic” and realizing Jack could have fit on that makeshift raft.
This week the S&P 500 closed at 3,508.01, a gain of 3.26%, the NASDAQ finished at 11,695.63, a gain of 3.39%, and the Dow ended at 28,653.87, a gain of 2.59%.
Summary
This week was dominated by Salesforce and the Federal Reserve. The software company, Salesforce, was announced as one of the new names joining the Dow in its shakeup of holdings. It followed that up by absolutely crushing earnings and its stock promptly exploded up. Jerome Powell and the Fed took the attention in the latter half of the week at their annual Jackson Hole Symposium when his words ensured favorable future market conditions for investors.
Worth Mentioning
- The Dow replaced three companies in its index, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer and Raytheon, with Salesforce, Amgen and Honeywell
- Consumer confidence fell for the second straight month and was well below estimates
- Salesforce earnings blew estimates out of the water. They reported EPS of $1.47 per share vs estimates of $0.67 and revenue of $5.15 billion vs estimates of $4.90 billion. Their stock was up 16% on Wednesday
- Jerome Powell announced a policy shift at the Jackson Hole Symposium this Thursday. The Fed will aim for average inflation targeting, which may cause interest rates to stay lower for longer
- Moderna announced positive results from the small trial of its coronavirus vaccine
- Initial jobless claims were above 1 million for the previous week
- The Republican National Convention was held this past week
Looking Ahead to Next Week
- August’s unemployment rate is released Friday
- Apple and Tesla begin trading at their post stock split price on Monday
- Zoom, one of the most popular stay-at-home stocks, reports earnings Monday after market hours
Weekly Change In Each Sector:
| Price, 08/21 | Price, 08/28 | Change | |
| XLC — Communications Service | $60.75 | $63.56 | 4.63% |
| XLY — Consumer Discretionary | $146.18 | $150.53 | 2.98% |
| XLP — Consumer Staples | $64.30 | $65.77 | 2.29% |
| XLE — Energy | $36.03 | $36.44 | 1.14% |
| XLF — Financials | $24.31 | $25.36 | 4.32% |
| XLV — Health Care | $106.82 | $108.00 | 1.10% |
| XLI — Industrials | $76.45 | $78.79 | 3.06% |
| XLK — Information Technology | $117.94 | $123.16 | 4.43% |
| XLB — Materials | $61.89 | $63.97 | 3.36% |
| XLRE — Real Estate | $35.90 | $36.57 | 1.87% |
| XLU — Utilities | $59.42 | $59.07 | -0.59% |
Treasury Yield Rates
The 10-Year ended the week at 0.74%, compared to last week’s end of 0.64%
The 2-Year ended the week at 0.14%, compared to last week’s end of 0.16%
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