Corporate earnings season continues - 28.7.2017

On Thursday, there was no single trend in the US stock market. The Nasdaq index fell by 0.63%, the S & P 500 - by 0.1%, while the Dow increased by 0.39%. It should be noted that during the day there was no noticeable negative trend. On the contrary, durable goods orders increased in June for the fifth consecutive month. Their growth exceeded forecasts and amounted to 6.5%. The US trade deficit declined in June by 3.7% to $63.9 bln. This is also better than expected. Some investors even revised up the forecast for the US GDP growth for Q2, 2017, from 2.7% to 3.5%. It will be released today at 14-30 CET. In Q1, the US economy grew by only 1.4%. The high-tech index Nasdaq decreased despite the positive quarterly reports of Facebook. Its shares went up by 2.9%. In general, yesterday's decline in indices is still difficult to explain. Perhaps, market participants reacted to the stop of the subscribers’ growth of Twitter. It has already been at the same level of about 328 mln for several months now. Twitter stocks fell by 14.1% yesterday. Also, it is possible that investors made profit before the reports publication of the Internet company Amazon.com. It came out after the closure of trading and was weak. Currently, the futures for the US stock indices are traded "in the red." The US dollar index rose yesterday on the background of positive economic statistics. Today it declines expecting the GDP data.

European stock indices slightly decreased yesterday. No significant economic statistics came out. The British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca reported an unsuccessful testing of a new medicine for cancer. Its stocks fell by 15.7%. The European medical index STOXX Europe 600 health care decreased by 1.2%. Deutsche Bank reduced the forecast of its income in 2017 and its stocks fell by 6.5%. The forecasts of German chemical companies BASF and Bayer also worsened. This contributed to the decrease of the DAX. index. Today, the Swiss bank lowered its earnings forecast in the second half of this year and its stocks fell by almost 4%. Shares of the car company Renault fell by 5.8% due to the weak quarterly report. All these contribute to the continued decline of the European stock indices today. The euro exchange rate fluctuates within the narrow range near the 2-year high.