Daily Agenda: Investors Grow Bullish on Earnings Beats

昨天，标准普尔500人达到了一年到日期，因为投资者在企业盈利公告中继续发现比糟糕更好。到目前为止，随着S＆P 500 500指数的40％以上的组成公司，超过75％超过了共识分析师估计。通过指导和分析师的预测在报告周期开始之前如此之低，关键消息似乎是投资者如果利润击败期望，投资者会看到一线希望 - 即使这些期望已经减少了。今天甲板上的一系列关键公告，包括卫生保健巨头约翰逊和约翰逊，通过发布每股1.68美元的利润而超过了药物销售的分析师预测与共识估计数为1.65美元，以及今天的烟草国王菲利普国际guided full-year earnings higher on a slowdown in the U.S. dollar’s rise.

Goldman Sachs profits decline by 60 percent but still beat estimates.Results for the first quarter released today by Goldman Sachs Group included a sharp year-over-year plunge in both revenues and profits as pressures on fixed-income trading weighed heavily on Wall Street. At $2.68 per share, the New York bank beat consensus analyst estimates of $2.48 despite total revenues falling below expectations. The outperformance in earnings margin was the result of aggressive cost cutting. Goldman is the last major Wall Street bank to announce this earnings cycle.

Chinese consumer appetite drives consolidation.Bloomberg today reported that a group of investors headed byChina’s sovereign wealth fundhas approached Louisville, Kentucky’s Yum! Brands in a bid to acquire that company’s mainland operation, which includes more than 7,000 Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets. Other investors reportedly taking part in the proposed buyout, which could exceed $7 billion in total cost, include alternative-asset giantKKR & Co. A group led by Shanghai Pengxin Group announced today that it had agreed to acquire Australia’s S. Kidman & Co. Valued at more than $250 million, the acquisition will provide the Chinese firm with ranch lands amounting to more than 1 percent of Australia’s total land mass as it seeks to capitalize on expanding demand for beef at home.

Japanese Seven-Eleven operator appeases activists.Today Seven & i Holdings Co., the Tokyo-based company that operates Seven-Eleven stores throughout Japan, announced that Ryuichi Isaka, who had been running the popular retail chain in Japan, would be promoted to president of the parent company. The move is a victory for a group of U.S. activist investors led byThird Point CEO Daniel Loeb, who has argued that a shake-up in management at the retailer will boost shareholder value.

German investors turn bullish.欧洲经济研究中心公布德国伊斯兰教纪元unced today that there has a been a sharp rise in confidence among German investors with the organization’s headline sentiment index rising to 11.2 for April versus a prior 4.3. Analysts cite signals of recovering demand from China and the European Central Bank’s quantitative-easing program as primary drivers for the upbeat reading.

Roche positive on approval for cancer treatment.Basel, Switzerland-based Roche Holding on Tuesday announced that it is confident that atezolizumab, a new drug the company has developed to assist the immune system fight cancer, will receive regulatory approval in the U.S. within the year. The drug is specifically targeted against bladder cancer, which accounts for roughly 5 percent of all new cancer diagnoses among Americans each year, according to the American Cancer Society.