Morning Brief: Netflix shares soar after reporting an earnings beat

Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 3:15 AM

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

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On Wednesday, stocks could potentially be looking at a boost from Netflix (NFLX) shares after the company reported an earnings beat and massive jump in streaming members after the market close on Tuesday. In after hours trading on Tuesday Netflix was up as much as 12% after the company reported adding 6.96 million streaming members during the third quarter, more than the 5 million Netflix had expected and well above Wall Street’s expectations for the quarter.

The day’s main economic highlight should come in the afternoon when the Federal Reserve releases the minutes from its latest policy meeting at 2:00 p.m. ET. The economic calendar also brings investors the September reading on housing starts and building permits, with starts expected to be negatively impacted by Hurricane Florence.

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(Photo Illustration by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images)

Netflix user growth beats expectations, shares spike: Netflix (NFLX) reported user growth that exceeded Wall Street expectations, underscoring a recovery for the online streamer following a rare miss in new user additions last quarter. Netflix’s stock rose 13% in late trading Tuesday. [Yahoo Finance]

Goldman, Morgan Stanley get a boost from IPOs: Initial public offerings are netting solid profits for the two large U.S. investment banks. Both Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) posted strong equity underwriting revenues as they try to court ride-hailing company Uber on a huge potential IPO that could reach a market value of $120 billion. [Yahoo Finance]

The US is the most competitive country in the world: Amid U.S. President Donald Trump starting trade wars across the globe, the World Economic Forum just unveiled the United States has reclaimed the crown as the most competitive country in the world. Every year WEF releases its benchmarkGlobal Competitiveness Report that takes a look 98 indicators across 140 countries to determine the overall ranking. [Yahoo Finance UK]

Wall St. beats exchanges in market-data fee battle: Wall Street brokerages scored a big win over the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Inc. Tuesday when the Securities and Exchange Commission said the exchanges failed to justify fee increases that are crucial to their businesses. [Bloomberg]

IBM misses revenue estimates: International Business Machines Corp (IBM) missed Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue on Tuesday, weighed down by slowing demand for its mainframe servers. Overall revenue slipped 2.1% to $18.76 billion in the three months ended Sept. 30, missing financial analysts’ average estimate of $19.10 billion. [Reuters]