Leave it to an Austrian skydiver and an energy drink company to make the world dream. Watching Felix Baumgartner's record- and sound-barrier-breaking jump from the edge of space on Sunday was pretty exciting.
On the macroeconomic front, this is a pretty quiet week with regard to central-bank actions and economic data, although it will be interesting to see the housing-starts and building-permits data due on Wednesday. Last week, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the housing market has "turned the corner." He's not as bullish as Roger Altman, former Treasury secretary and chairman of investment banking boutique Evercore Partners. In a commentary posted on the Financial Times website last Thursday, Altman wrote that the turn, which "is occurring now ... should become a boom by 2015."
I don't know about the "boom," but Citigroup's (C +0.11%) third-quarter results, released this morning, lend credence to the "turn": Profits at the bank's North American consumer banking unit rose 18% year on year on increased mortgage revenue.
The Dow (^DJI 0.26%) and the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.61%) are up 0.1% and 0.04%, respectively, as of 10:20 a.m. EDT. But this is a big week for the indexes, with 12 of 30 Dow components and 79 S&P 500 components reporting results. For the Dow, these include:
- Tuesday: International Business Machines, Intel, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson
- Wednesday: Bank of America, American Express
- Thursday: Verizon, Travelers, Microsoft
- Friday: McDonald's, General Electric
We'll be covering each of these companies, so be sure to check in at Fool.com for our take on what the results mean for business-focused investors. If you want to find out which three Dow stocks dividend investors need, be sure to click here to request your free report.
