Major earnings reports will be published today.
Three huge Dow Jones companies will publish earnings. Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Visa (NYSE:V) will report before the market open. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) will report after the market closes.
The Dow Jones is a price-weighted index. Meaning its movement has nothing to do with the size of the company but only its price. The higher the price, the bigger the influence on the Dow Jones. Therefore, Boeing has the biggest influence because its price is the highest. The stock closed yesterday at $350.05. Visa closed yesterday at $139.12 a share. So, both companies have an impact of 350+139= 489 points on the Dow.
For comparison, the biggest company in the world- Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), has a price of $222, so its impact on the Dow is less than half.
The overall market sentiment is still on the downside, so traders will prefer taking advantage of short to medium term drops in the price of stocks today. A disappointing report by all 3 companies could generate massive stress before the reports tomorrow by Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).