Career News 24/7: STOCKS CLIMB: Here's What You Need To Know, November 4, 2013

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Monday, November 4, 2013

It was another relatively quiet day in the markets.

First, the scoreboard:

And now the top stories:

The Census published two sets of factory orders stats because the first set was delayed due to the government shutdown. August orders unexpectedly fell by 0.1%, which was below the 0.3% gain expected. Off of that base, September orders climbed by 1.7%, which was weaker than the 1.8% expected. So, this was a weak report.
Despite what would be considered bad news, stocks rallied again today. This was actually a market theme in October as companies announced their earnings. "The Q4 bottom-up EPS estimate (which is an aggregation of the estimates for all 500 companies in the index) dropped 1.5% (to $28.46 from $28.90) during the month," said FactSet's John Butters. ""At the same time, the value of the S&P 500 increased 4.5% (to 1756.54 from 1681.55) during October, and it closed at a record high on October 29 (1771.95)."
Speaking of earnings season, Goldman Sachs' David Kostin noted that much of the sales growth reported in Q3 came from acquisitions. "Year/year revenue growth equaled just 1% in first-half 2013 but surged to 5% in 3Q," said Kostin. "Notably, just 20 companies accounted for 25% of aggregate sales but 50% of growth. 18 of the 20 firms completed acquisitions during the past year. The 20 stocks boosted 3Q sales by 13% versus just 2% for other firms."
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