Stock Market Today: Earnings Lifts Stocks, Bitcoin Price Pops

(Image credit: Lam Yik/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

published 24 October 2023

Stocks rallied hard Tuesday as investors took in the latest round of corporate earnings. The buying power faded early afternoon but picked up again into the close as market participants looked ahead to quarterly results from several Big Tech firms.

When the closing bell rang, the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.9% at 13,139, the S&P 500 had gained 0.7% to 4,247, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.6% higher at 33,141.

Coca-Cola, Verizon pop after earnings

It's a busy week on the earnings front, with roughly 30% of S&P 500 companies reporting. Today's headlines centered around results from several blue chip stocks. Coca-Cola (KO), for one, jumped 2.9% after the beverage company reported higher-than-expected third-quarter earnings of 74 cents per share on revenue of $11.9 billion. The company also raised its full-year guidance.

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"KO's streak of earnings beats remained intact, as the last time the company posted a quarterly earnings miss was in 2017," says CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson who upgraded the Dow stock to Strong Buy from Buy. The company's revenue growth showed little signs of stopping in Q3, thanks in part to strong demand in Latin America, Nelson adds.

Verizon Communications (VZ) was another stock popping post-earnings, with shares jumping 9.3% after the telecommunications firm reported a third-quarter earnings beat. Revenue of $33.3 billion matched estimates, while the company also raised its full-year free cash flow forecast by $1 billion to more than $18 billion.

Next up on the earnings calendar are Alphabet (GOOGL, +1.7%) and Microsoft (MSFT, +0.4%) – both of which reported higher-than-expected earnings after tonight's close. Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META, -0.5%) reports tomorrow night, while results from e-commerce giant Amazon.com (AMZN, +1.6%) are due after Thursday's close.

Bitcoin price pops on ETF chatter

Bitcoin was a big mover too. The cryptocurrency ran up near $35,000 overnight, a level it hasn't seen since May 2022, on news asset management giant BlackRock listed its iShares Bitcoin Trust with the ticker IBTC on the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC). This sparked excitement that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is on the cusp of approving the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

"Bitcoin has stormed higher again on Tuesday continuing its blockbuster start to the week on the back of more ETF chat," says Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA. "There's clearly a lot of excitement about the prospect of a Bitcoin spot ETF, as is evident by such a surge on speculation of something that was already expected to eventually get over the line."

However, subsequent reports indicated that the listing for the iShares Bitcoin Trust had been removed from the DTCC website. This brought Bitcoin slightly off its earlier highs, with the digital asset last seen up 7.8% at $33,804. (Bitcoin markets don't close; price taken at 4 pm Eastern.) Still, the price of Bitcoin is up 25% since the start of the month.

Flash PMI data comes in strong

On the economic front, data from S&P Global showed its flash manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) and flash services PMI were both higher in October vs September, with the latter surpassing the 50 level that marks expansion for the first time since April.

"Hopes of a soft landing for the U.S. economy will be encouraged by the improved situation seen in October," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, in the report. Still, Williamson warns that ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East "post downside risks to growth and upside risks to inflation, adding fresh uncertainty to the outlook."

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With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is an investing editor and options expert at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021 after 10 years of working as an investing writer and columnist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. In her previous role, Karee focused primarily on options trading, as well as technical, fundamental and sentiment analysis.