This would be a sharp contrast to last years’ 3 cent per share loss on earnings of $5.99 billion. Reasons for the improved outlook include aluminum’s price rebound, forecast to grow by 6.5% in 2013. With improving numbers from China pointing to a recovery, increased infrastructure spending in the region could spur demand beyond the price forecast for the year.
While expectations are low, Alcoa supplies aluminum to the auto industry and for iPads. I believe they will surprise us and report better than expected earnings, another indication that global growth is not slowing down.
A better gauge will be Bank Earnings with Wells Fargo (WFC) reporting later this week and Goldman Sachs (GS) and Bank of America (BAC) reporting next week. For the recovery to move to the next level, we need to see strong Bank earnings. The minor pullback we saw recently is healthy and should attract new buyers to lead us new 52 week highs and 1500 in the S&P 500 Futures.
—
Andrew Keene
President/Founder
KeeneOnTheMarket.com