Stocks End Higher, Another New All-Time High For The S&P

Market Moves You Need to See Stocks End Higher, Another New All-Time High For The S&P [Kevin Matras - EVP - Photo] Profit from the Pros By Kevin Matras Executive Vice President Stocks End Higher, Another New All-Time High For The S&P [Stocks End Higher, Another New All-Time High For The S&P]Image: Shutterstock Stocks closed higher yesterday with the big three indexes now in the plus column for the week. The small-cap Russell 2000, and the mid-cap S&P 400 are just shy of that mark. But it won't take much to get them into positive territory. Before the open yesterday, Alibaba posted a negative EPS surprise of -2.20%, and a negative sales surprise of -1.46%. Even though that translated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 9.43% vs. the same time last year, and a 2.09% sales growth, it was not enough for this Hong Kong based company and it weighed on shares. CVS reported before the open as well and posted a 5.47% positive EPS surprise, and a 3.31% positive sales surprise. That represented a 3.9% quarterly EPS growth rate vs. 4 quarters ago, and an 11.9% sales growth. They were up 3.10% during the regular session. And Uber reported before the open and posted a 340% positive EPS surprise, and a 1.94% positive sales surprise. That equates to a 128% quarterly EPS growth rate vs. this time last year, and a 15.5% sales growth. They were only up 0.26% during the regular session. But they are up more 102% over the last 12 months. After the close, ARM Holdings posted a 16.0% positive EPS surprise, and a 7.69% positive sales surprise. They also guided next quarter sales higher by roughly 12% over the consensus. They soared by more than 36% in after-hours trade. That's on top of the 5.52% in the regular session before they reported. Disney reported after the close as well and posted a positive EPS surprise of 25.8%, and a positive sales surprise of 0.58%. That represented a 23.2% quarterly EPS growth rate vs. last year, and a 0.17% sales growth. They were up by roughly 6% in after-hours. And Confluent reported after the bell and posted a positive EPS surprise of 80.0%, and a positive sales surprise of 4.18%. They were up 3.45% in the regular session before earnings, and another 20% in after-hours following earnings. Today there's another 254 companies on deck to report. Should be another busy day of earnings. On the economic report front yesterday, MBA Mortgage Applications were up 3.7% w/w with purchases off by -0.6%, and refi's up by 12.3%. And the International Trade in Goods and Services report came in at a deficit of -$62.2 billion as expected, but widened a bit vs. last month's -$61.9B. Today we'll get Weekly Jobless Claims, and the Wholesale Inventories report. It's been a great earnings season so far. And stocks have responded accordingly. No real surprise, however, since stocks typically go up during earnings season. Nonetheless, it's been nice to see the beats. While the debate on whether the Fed cuts rates in May or June heats up (pretty unlikely in March), the market has taken it all in stride, feeling confident that cuts are coming eventually. And that's bullish. Soon the conversation will shift to how many cuts we'll see this year. That might be a more contentious issue. But that's for another time. In the meantime, stocks continue to trend higher. All good signs for even bigger gains by year's end. See you tomorrow, [Kevin Matras - Signature] Kevin Matras Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research [Best Tech Market in Decades]( Will you be left behind? Zacks Technology Innovators portfolio has recently closed a flurry of winners such as +1,007.1%, +121.0%, +118.8% and even +45.3% in just 6 days. But, in our view, the best is yet to come. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is just starting to skyrocket toward multi-trillions in revenue, igniting many tech stocks along the way. 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