U.S. stocks were in positive territory on Friday, ahead of labor market data. The economy added 155,000 jobs the past month, while the unemployment rate remained at 3.7%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.35% to 25,033, the S&P 500 index gained 0.22% to 2,702, and the Nasdaq Composite Index slid 0.07% to 7,182.
Shares of Broadcom Inc. (AVGO, Financial) fell about 2% on Friday, after the company posted fourth-quarter earnings of $5.85 per share, on revenue of $5.44 billion, reflecting a 12.4% year-over-year growth. The company beat earnings expectations by 27 cents and revenues estimations by $40 million.
The gross margin was $2.935 billion, or 53.9% of net revenue, higher than $2.619 billion, or 51.7% in the third quarter, and gross margin of $2.383 billion, or 49.2% registered in the same trimester of the last year.
Further, the operating income was $1.652 billion, or 30.3% of net revenue. This was also higher than the figures reported in the previous quarter and in the same quarter last year.
Hock Tan, the company's president and CEO said, "Looking forward to fiscal year 2019, we expect another year of double digit revenue growth. Sustained demand within our semiconductor segment will be augmented by the newly acquired mainframe and enterprise software businesses to our infrastructure software segment. We also expect operating margin to hit another record in fiscal year 2019 driven by improved operating leverage."
Gainers
• Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC, Financial)
• Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO, Financial)
• EOG Resources Inc. (EOG, Financial)”‹
• Altria Group Inc. (MO, Financial)
• Cimarex Energy Co. (XEC, Financial)
Losers
• Ulta Beauty Inc. (ULTA, Financial)
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE, Financial)
• Micron Technology Inc. (MU, Financial)
• Seagate Technology PLC (STX, Financial)
• Davita Inc. (DVA, Financial)
Global markets
The main European stock markets traded higher. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 rose 2.37%, France's CAC 40 jumped 1.93%, Germany's Dax gained 0.98% and Spain's Ibex 35 advanced 1.63%.
In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.82%, India’s BSE Sensex jumped 1.02%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng slid 0.35% and China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.03%.
Disclosure: The author holds no positions in any stocks mentioned.
