The US indexes ended yesterday's stock market upwards, prompting Asian and European markets to open on a plus today. The growth of European markets, however, was far stronger. The German DAX has risen to levels of trade of nearly 12,700 points, or an increase of over 1% compared to yesterday.Opening on a positive territory is also shown by US index futures, with the S&P 500 trading at levels above 2,816 points.
To a large extent, the positive mood contributed to Google's results. The parent company, Alphabet, reported yesterday quarterly earnings of $32.66 billion, an increase of 26 percent and acceleration in the same quarter of last year. For comparison, revenue growth in the second quarter of 2017 was 21%.
After the results, the company's shares rose 5% and Alphabet's market capitalization was almost equal to Amazon's. For comparison, Amazon's market estimate is at $874 billion.
Still, Apple's shares remain closest to the boundary line. After good news about the company, its stock continued to rise and its capitalization is already close to 942 billion dollars. So Apple is only about 6% of reaching the coveted $1 trillion, which has not been achieved by any company in history.
So far, more than 17 percent of S&P 500 companies have announced their second-quarter results, with 82 percent of analysts expecting analysts to expect, according to FactSet. Wall Street has high expectations for this reporting season, with analysts forecasting an annual growth of 20%.
