Markets Up on Decent PCE & Earnings. Q4 After the Close: INTC, COF, CSX

Thursday, January 22nd, 2026

Markets rose again in Thursday’s session, kicking off the early market with more positive Jobless Claims and Q3 GDP revision. The Dow gained +306 points, +0.63%, while the S&P 500 +37 points +0.55%. The Nasdaq led the way today, +211 points, +0.91%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 grew +17, +0.64%.

Market participants shrugged off the delayed November Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report this morning, which noted Personal Spending increased +0.3%, 10 basis points (bps) lower than expected, following a drop of 30 bps to +0.1% in the previous print. Personal Spending remained slightly elevated, +0.5%, in-line with the October result. The PCE Index month over month was +0.2% on both headline and core.

Year over year PCE moved back up to +2.8% after dipping 10 bps the prior month, and the same results met core (ex-food and energy expenditures) PCE from a year ago. Ultimately, these figures remain in the sweet spot, though it would behoove us to pay attention to the Income/Spending gap, which has widened over the past two prints.
 

Earnings Results After the Close

Chipmaking major Intel INTC beat estimates on both top and bottom lines this afternoon — earnings of 15 cents per share nearly doubled the 8 cents anticipated, on $13.67 billion in revenues which were ahead of the Zacks consensus $13.37 billion — but shares are selling off -6.5% on the news. Revenue guidance for the current quarter was pulled down a bit on the low end, as Intel continues to see supply constraints in their future.

Data Center grew +9% year over year to $4.7 billion, augmented a bit by a -7% drop in Cloud computing. Intel stock had been growing gangbusters as of the start of the year, +47%, so we look at most of this late-trading activity as being a relatively normal level of profit-booking.

Capital One COF broke its five-quarter positive earnings surprise streak, missing Q4 estimates to $3.86 per share, from $4.12 in the Zacks consensus. Revenues of $15.58 billion, on the other hand, amounted to a healthy beat over the $15.37 billion expected. The company also announced it has purchased AI-based FinTech Brex for $5.15 billion in cash and stock. Shares of COF are -3.5% at this hour.

Transportation major CSX CSX sees its share price increase in late trading on its Q4 miss on both top and bottom lines. Earnings of 39 cents per share missed consensus (and the prior-year tally) by 3 cents, while $3.51 billion in revenues came up a tad short of the Zacks consensus $3.55 billion. The rail company cited subdued industrial demand for the weakness in the quarter. 

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