…..Earnings season heats up. Apple is weak. VW reaches a settlement. Takata heads to BK. Driverless beer. Home prices rise, inventories are tight. Consumer confidence drops. Obamacare premiums will jump. Renewable energy installations pass fossil fuel. Financial Review by Sinclair Noe for 10-25-2016 DOW – 53 = 18,169 SPX – 8 = 2143 NAS – 26 = 5283 10 Y un 1.75% OIL – 1.22 = 49.30 GOLD + 8.70 = 1274.10       More than 90 companies delivered quarterly results today. Dow components 3M, Caterpillar and DuPont reported earnings before the bell. Caterpillar and 3M posted mixed results, as both beat estimates on the bottom line, while missing on revenues. Caterpillar also lowered its 2016 earnings per share guidance. DuPont posted better than expected quarterly earnings and raised its yearly profit forecast.   The largest S&P 500 stock by market capitalization – Apple – is the highlight of today’s earnings reports. After the closing bell, Apple reported net income per share of $1.67, down from $1.96 a share a year earlier. Revenue fell 9 percent to $46.9 billion. Analysts expected profit of $1.66 a share on sales of $46.9 billion. Apple experienced its first annual sales decline since 2001. For the third consecutive quarter, iPhone sales were down from the year-ago period. Apple sold 45.5 million iPhones, down from last year’s sales of 48 million. But only a few weeks of iPhone 7 sales were included in this quarter. Next quarter is the holiday quarter, which is Apple’s biggest quarter, and it will be the first full ...