After a terrible week for the market, you'd hope that the start of one of the biggest weeks of the earnings season would prompt a recovery. Yet after a tepid advance to begin the session, the stock market gave back most of its gains. Retail sales posted a reasonably impressive 1.1% gain, but concerns arose after the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said that its index of regional manufacturing activity showed negative conditions for the third month in a row.
By 10:45 a.m. EDT, the Dow Jones Industrials (^DJI 0.69%) were up less than 20 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes were mixed.
One area of strength came from financials, with Bank of America (BAC 1.70%) climbing almost 1% after Citigroup (C 2.82%) announced better-than-expected results. Although cost-cutting measures helped Citi boost its bottom line, the bank surprised analysts with extensive profits from its trading division. Citi climbed 3.5%, but investors will watch closely to see what B of A says when it reports later this week.
On the downside was AT&T (T 1.17%), falling 1.5% as Japan's Softbank confirmed that it would take a 70% stake in Sprint (S) for about $20 billion. The massive transaction should go a long way toward boosting Sprint's status as a legitimate No. 3 in the U.S. wireless market, and AT&T's share-price drop fairly reflects that change in conditions.
Finally, Coca-Cola (KO 0.15%) was unchanged after receiving a downgrade from analyst CLSA. The analyst cited challenges in sustaining growth, which may well be a concern, given the stock's somewhat pricey valuation. In the long run, though, the global slowdown should eventually give way to faster growth, and Coke will be well-positioned to benefit when that happens.
