Wall Street’s expectations for Blue Nile went up considerably after last quarter’s better than expected earnings results. However, our checks show that while traffic is up slightly from last quarter, it continues to show weak y/y comparisons.
The decline in consumer spending has significantly impacted their theme park segment, while a weak advertising environment has impacted their media segment.
The rising price of oil along with better than expected quarterly results out of Occidental Petroleum and Noble Corp all point to a stronger than expected quarter for Exxon.
The second quarter earnings season has started out with the first twelve Dow stocks all reporting better than expected earnings results. We expect that Verizon will also follow that pattern and beat analyst expectations.
We believe the economic environment improved somewhat in the second quarter which should enable AXP to deliver better than expected results once again, but remain concerned about increasing credit losses and declining consumer spending.
While Microsoft has certainly been feeling the impact of the recessionary environment, we feel that Intel’s strong second quarter performance could be indicative of what we can expect from Microsoft.
