Morningstar Indexes: Weekly Market Report

Markets concluded a three-week rally with a mixed bag of earnings announcements, closing the week ending October 20, 2006 almost flat. Investors seemed ambivalent to the further drop in oil prices and concerns over tightening labor markets. The Morningstar US Market Index was up 0.1% for the week as investors waited for quarterly earnings reports from several bellwether stocks and for the outcome of the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee meeting this week.

Strong results from several large index constituents propelled the Morningstar Large Core Index into the top spot among the nine Morningstar Style Indexes. Conversely, disappointing earnings reports from top components of the Morningstar Mid Growth Index pushed it into the bottom spot Third-quarter earnings reports from Morningstar Large Core Index's top components Johnson & Johnson JNJ, International Business Machines Corp. IBM, and COCA-COLA CO KO. saw their stocks jump over 5% for the week. Meanwhile, Caterpillar Inc. CAT and Motorola Inc. MOT announced disappointing results and weak forecasts, pushing their stocks down 14.2% and 9.9%, respectively.

Apollo Group Inc. APOL, a post-secondary education service provider, claimed the unwanted title of the week's overall worst performing stock with a jaw-dropping 27% drop. A long-term downward trend in enrollment growth and irregularities in past stock option grants were to blame for the slide.