Major Tech Earnings In Focus

This week, we are locked and loaded for market-moving news items, from Q4 earnings reports ahead of the bell this morning to the BLS non-farm payroll and unemployment report on Friday, with so much more in between. Some of the biggest names on the Dow and Nasdaq —including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) , Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) , Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) — will be making their quarterly contributions to this earnings season. For a detailed analysis on what to expect from these major companies, click here.

Keurig Buys Dr Pepper

We also see a big development in M&A activity early this morning, with privately-owned Keurig Green Mountain announcing its purchase of beverage conglomerate Dr. Pepper Snapple (NYSE:D) for $103.75 per share to DPS shareholders. The new company will be called Keurig Dr Pepper with a new ticker symbol — KDP — which will not only seek to increase competition versus bigger beverage giants like Coke and Pepsi, but will be a way for market participants to once again own share of the coffee maker. Shares were up 37% on the announcement.

Person Income & Spending

Also ahead of today’s market open, fresh reads on Personal Income and Spending were released. Income of +0.4% is a tick higher than estimates, while the in-line Spending headline number also reached +0.4%. The revised Spending tally from the previous report, already strong at +0.6%, was revised even higher to 0.8%.

“Real” spending hit +0.3% for the month and the deflator reached +0.1%, both slightly down from the previous read. Personal Consumption Core was in-line at +0.2%, a tick higher than last month, and year-over-year this reached +1.5%, in-line sequentially.

We also notice the savings rate has fallen to 2.4%, the lowest we’ve seen since 2005. This effectively demonstrated savings are being driven down for many people, as consumer confidence is much higher even if wage growth hasn’t quite kept pace. There is nothing untenable in this figure at this stage, especially with the wealth effect from lower taxes expected to have a positive effect for many individuals and almost all corporations.

Q4 Earnings This Morning

Very quickly, defense giant Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) posted $4.30 per share on $15.14 billion in quarterly revenues, both up from Zacks consensus estimates of $4.06 per share and $14.75 billion, respectively. Earnings were +6% year over year and revenues were +10%. Full year 2018 guidance of between $15.20-15.50 per share well outpaces the current Zacks estimate of $13.88 per share. For more on LMT's earnings, click here.

Dominion Energy (NYSE:D) also veat on both top- and bottom-lines ahead of today’s opening bell, with 91 cents per share amounting to a 3-cent beat, and revenues of $3,210 million barely squeaking by the estimated $3,208 million. The company announced it is provided electricity to more than 25K more customers in Q4 2018 from the previous year. For more on D's earnings, click here.