The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.56%) has gained 10 points in pre-market trading, suggesting a flat start for the stock market today. Global indexes saw modest gains overnight, with Asian shares up less than 1% and European stocks higher by 0.4% as of 9 a.m. EDT.
Today's economic calendar is light, but investors will have plenty of new earnings reports to digest over the next 24 hours. Facebook, for one, delivers its quarterly numbers after the closing bell, and analysts expect the social network to book a massive 55% revenue gain.
Meanwhile, Boeing (BA -0.24%) and PepsiCo (PEP 1.08%) stocks are on the move after the companies posted their quarterly results this morning.
Boeing delivered surprisingly high second-quarter profit growth and boosted its full-year earnings forecast. The Dow giant booked $22 billion in sales, which was a 1% improvement year over year and met Wall Street's expectations. But earnings growth was another story: profit jumped 45% to reach $2.42 a share, while analysts expected just $2.01. Much of that gain involved tax adjustments, but Boeing's operating results were strong as well. Commercial airplane deliveries grew by 7% from the prior year. Operating margin ticked higher in that division, reaching 10.8%. Boeing ended the quarter with $440 billion of backlog and secured $23 billion in net orders, slightly higher than the previous quarter's $19 billion result. The company also boosted its full-year earnings-per-share guidance to $8 at the midpoint, versus its prior forecast of $7.25. The stock was down 1.5% in pre-market trading.
For PepsiCo, Wall Street had braced for flat sales growth and a slight dip in quarterly profit. Instead, the snack and beverage giant saw a slight increase in both results: Sales grew 0.5% year over year to $16.9 billion as profit ticked higher by $0.01 to $1.32 per share. CEO Indra Nooyi said in a press release that management was "pleased" to deliver those results in a sales environment that was pressured by "macroeconomic volatility, political instability, and other challenging conditions in a number of our key markets." Reflecting those challenges, organic revenue climbed 3.5% overall, which was a slowdown from last quarter's 4% rise. Still, Pepsi continued to churn out profits as its gross margin expanded by 0.6%. Management now expects 8% full-year EPS growth as compared to the 7% it predicted last quarter. PepsiCo's stock was up 1.9% in pre-market trading.
