Stocks opened with modest gains and have remained in a narrow trading range all morning. The market is being led by the Nasdaq, which is being helped by Apple (AAPL) shares that are jumping on the heels of the iPhone maker’s earnings report last night. The market shook off the disappointing monthly jobs data, putting it on pace for its eighth straight week of gains. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., nonfarm payrolls increased 261,000 in October, which fell short of assumptions, though that was seen by some as due to a continuing impact from hurricane disruptions. The unemployment rate slid to 4.1% from 4.2%. The trade deficit widened 1.7% to $43.5B in September, largely reversing the narrowing that had been reported in August. Markit’s services index was unchanged at 55.3 in the final October print. ISM’s services index edged up to 60.1 in October, beating estimates for a small decline. Factory orders rose 1.4% in September. COMPANY NEWS: Shares of Apple have gained 3% after the company’s revenue and earning strength in the just completed quarter surprised investors and analysts given that its sought-after iPhone X had not even hit stores until today. Additionally, the company’s holiday quarter sales guidance, which was a bit higher than Street expectations, suggests some of the iPhone supply concerns are overdone, Deutsche Bank analyst Sherri Scribner noted… Shares of Starbucks (SBUX) are well off their after-hours lows and have risen more than 3% in morning trading despite the fact that the coffee giant’s quarterly revenue missed analysts’ expectations and it lowered its long-term outlook. However, several analysts noted that the quarterly results and guidance were both better than nervous investors feared heading into the report… Equifax (EFX) released a report completed by its board’s special committee regarding the trading of company securities by certain executives following the detection of the company’s cybersecurity breach and prior to public disclosure of the incident, which concluded that “none of the four executives had knowledge of the incident when their trades were made…and that none of the four executives engaged in insider trading.” MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers after reporting quarterly results were Control4 (CTRL), Molina Healthcare (MOH), and Arista Networks (ANET), which rose 16.5%, 15%, and 10%, respectively. Among the notable losers after reporting quarterly results were GenMark (GNMK) and Pandora (P), which each fell by about 30%. Additionally, Activision Blizzard (ATVI) slipped 4% following the video game maker’s earnings report. INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was up 22.88, or 0.1%, to 23,539.14, the Nasdaq was up 28.17, or 0.42%, to 6,743.12, and the S&P 500 was up 3.82, or 0.15%, to 2,583.67.
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