More Earnings, Deckers Gets Slaughtered, Best Buy Braces Investors: Market Recap

Markets were mixed Friday on Wall Street:

S&P 500: -0.07%, Nasdaq: +0.06%, Dow: +0.03%, Oil: +0.03%, Gold: -0.09.

On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) dropped to $86.08 per barrel. Precious metals were mixed, with Gold (NYSE:GLD) dropping to $1,711.40 per ounce and Silver (NYSE:SLV) climbing to $32.08 per ounce about 10 minutes after the bell.

Here’s your Cheat Sheet to Friday’s top stock stories:

After a mixed earnings release on Thursday, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) closed down 0.91 percent on Friday after posting modest gains in the pre-market. The company pulled in earnings per share of $8.67, missing Wall Street expectations of $8.84, but beating on revenue growth.

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Online retail giant Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) released its quarterly report Thursday afternoon and the numbers were disappointing, to say the least.  The Seattle, Washington-based company reported its first quarterly net losses since 2003 and revenues failed to meet expectations. However, despite the blow, the stock closed up 6.87 percent.

Deckers Outdoor (NASDAQ:DECK) got slaughtered, closing down 16.93 percent despite earnings per share of $1.18 that beat estimates by $0.13. The bad news is that revenue dropped 9 percent year over year and the outlook for the future looks pretty bleak.

Merck & Co. (NYSE:MRK) closed slightly down on a mixed earnings report. Net income rose while revenue fell. Read our Merck earnings Cheat Sheet for more.

Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) sounded a warning Thursday for investors to brace themselves for the company’s third-quarter earnings results, which the electronics retailer cautioned would show profits falling ‘significantly’ below last year’s mark.

Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) announced Friday that its quarterly profits have more than doubled thanks to a combination of positive forces, the most notable being improved performance by NBC Universal. Net income for the fiscal third quarter rose to $2.1 billion, or 78 cents per share, a boost shareholders are sure to relish after last year’s same quarter saw profits of $908 million, or 33 cents per share.  Sales also beat analysts’ expectations, rising 15 percent to $16.5 billion.

Vibrant consumer activity and improvements in the housing sector helped the economy expand at a better-than-expected annualized rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, the U.S. Commerce Department said. Friday’s report is the final GDP reading ahead of the elections on November 6 and will come as a positive for the Obama campaign.

Most of the third-quarter’s increase could be attributed to consumer spending, with real personal-consumption expenditures growing 2 percent from the 1.5 percent of the second quarter. Purchases of long-lasting goods gained 8.5 percent. Government spending also contributed to economic growth — for the first time in more than two years — by growing 9.6 percent after a 0.2 percent drop in the second quarter. Residential fixed investment grew by 14.4 percent.

Don’t Miss: Apple’s Huge Cash Hoard Continues to Grow.