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Pre-market indices are in a giving mood. Specifically, the Dow is selling off -175 points at the hour, the S&P 500 is -21 and the Nasdaq is -78 points. Today we close out April, is likely to be the first negative month since October of last year. This morning’s Employment Cost Index rose somewhat to +1.2% from +1.0% expected, which hasn’t been higher since Q2 of 2022, back when the Fed first started hiking interest rates in this cycle. Case-Shiller numbers are out soon (we will discuss in this afternoon’s report in this space), and otherwise, Q1 earnings season simply dominates everything else.

Eli Lilly & Co. LLY posted mixed Q1 results this morning. However, that didn’t stop the Big Pharma staple from gaining in pre-market trading. Earnings of $2.58 per share outperformed the Zacks consensus by a nickel (and easily ahead of the $1.62 per share reported in the year-ago quarter).

Revenues were slightly below estimates (-0.47%) to $8.77 billion in the quarter, well past the $6.96 billion from Q1 2023. Copious amounts of subscriptions for Zepbound and Mounjaro — type 2 diabetes drugs now being prescribed for weight loss, like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic) — have kept the stock near all-time highs, and the company is raising guidance as a result.

Coca-Cola KO is also close to all-time highs from 2022. The soft drink giant, which hasn’t missed on earnings since 2017, beat bottom line expectations — 72 cents per share versus 69 anticipated — on $11.3 billion in revenues, which outpaced projections by +3.2% in the quarter. That Coke trades at such a high valuation helps explain why the stock is trailing the S&P year to date, and even with raised guidance is only holding flat so far in pre-market trading.

McDonald’s MCD shares are down -1% on its Q1 earnings report before the bell. Earnings per share missed estimates by a penny to $2.71, breaking a string of eight straight quarters of beating consensus numbers on the bottom line. Revenues came in with a technical beat (+0.01%) to $6.17 billion, up from $5.9 billion in sales a year ago. The company reported lower sales partly due to pressures from the war in the Middle East, and shares are down nearly -2% at this hour, compounding its -7.7% loss year to date.

Industrial giant 3M MMM beat estimates on both top and bottom lines. Its Q1 earnings came in at $2.39 per share, nicely surpassing the $2.08 expected and the $1.97 per share reported in the year-ago quarter. This marks the fifth-straight quarterly earnings beat, this time by +14.7%. Revenues of $8 billion in the quarter sped past expectations by +4.7%, keeping its top-line beat streak intact. Shares are up +6.5% in early trading, filling in some of the crater of its -15% share price year to date.

After today’s close, we’ll see earnings results from Amazon AMZN and Starbucks SBUX, among a host of others, including growth-oriented Super Micro Computer SMCI, which is up +212% year to date but -14% over the past month. There will also be a new Consumer Confidence report due out for April at 10am ET, where expectations are for a slight wane to 103.5 from 104.7 reported last month.

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