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Weekly Market Wrap: December 20, 2013 Friday, December 20, 3:44 PM ET This fifty first trading week of 2013 comes to a close with investors pushing the markets higher on strong third quarter GDP data and news of a slow tapering by the Fed.
Hi. I'm Sayoko Murase. Welcome to the 'Weekly Market Wrap' for December 20, 2013.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were all trading higher by more than 2% this week.
Crude oil futures are higher this week, trading above $99.00 per barrel on Friday afternoon.
And Gold futures are lower this week, trading around $1,204 an ounce in Friday afternoon trading.
In economic news, the Commerce Department issued its third revision to the third quarter GDP estimates, raising its estimate from an annual rate of 3.6% up to an annual rate of 4.1%. This upward revision was a surprise as economists were expecting no change from the Commerce Department's previous estimates.
In corporate news, Facebook (FB) announced it would offer 70 million Class A shares in a stock sale. The shares will be mostly offered to index funds that track the S&P 500 as the funds will need to add Facebook to correctly track the underlying index. Facebook noted that CEO Mark Zuckerberg would sell 41 million Class A shares in the offering, but that the proceeds would be used to pay a tax bill associated with his purchased of 60 million Class B shares.
General Mills (GIS) reported fiscal second quarter earnings of $550 million, or 84 cents per share, as revenue slipped to $4.88 billion. Excluding one-time items, the company would have earned 83 cents per share, missing Wall Street estimates.
FedEx (FDX) reported fiscal second quarter earnings of $500 million, or $1.57 per share, as revenue rose by 3% to $11.4 billion. The logistics company missed Wall Street estimates for both earnings per share and revenue, but improved guidance prompted the stock to trade higher this week.
Frontier Communications (FTR) announced it would acquire AT&T's (T) wireline and fiber network in Connecticut for $2 billion. AT&T said it plans to use the cash proceeds from the deal to fund its push into more advanced IP, wireless and cloud networking, while Frontier Communications commented that the deal would be accretive to free cash flow.
This is the 'Weekly Market Wrap' for Friday December 20, 2013. Please join us on Monday for the Week Ahead Market Report.
For MarketNewsVideo.com, I'm Sayoko Murase. | |
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