Powell refuses chance to say the Fed is on interest rate hold through 2020
Given a chance to say that the Federal Reserve will keep its interest rate policy on hold through 2020, Fed chair Jerome Powell refused to take the bait at this morning’s testimony in front of the congressional Joint Economic Committee. “We see the current...
Disney hits new record price on launch of streaming service
The bad news is that 10 million customers tried to sign up for Disney+ on Tuesday, intermittently crashing the website for Disney’s (DIS) new streaming service. The good news is that 10 million customers flocked to the newly launched streaming service and by Day...
Record Singles’ Day sales support growth optimism on China
By the time Taylor Swift closed down the festivities at midnight with the last of three songs, Alibaba (BABA) had recorded sales of $38.4 billion for the Singles’ Day e-commerce shopping monster. This year’s total beat out last year’s record $30.8...
Tech stocks acting like they’re good to rally to the end of the year
I’m using my Volatility Portfolio pick Cirrus Logic (CRUS) as an indicator of the trend in technology stocks–particularly chip stocks–through the end of 2019. (I track this portfolio on my subscription sites JubakAM.com and JugglingWithKnives.com.)...
Tariff roll back or not? Markets certainly don’t know.
The uncertainty extends even to whether or not a Part 1 trade deal between the United States and China will even get signed in 2019. Yesterday, China’s Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said negotiators had “agreed to remove additional tariffs in phases as...
Failure to set Trump-Xi meeting place and date stalls market
It now looks likely that President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping may not be able to sign that Part 1 trade deal until December. The two sides still haven’t set a date or a place. The Chinese have ruled out the first two U.S. suggestions of Iowa and...
Ho, hum–another day, another all time high driven by FOMO
Today, Monday November 4, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its first new all-time high since July. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and the NASDAQ Composite also saw new highs. Stocks gave up some of their gains into the close but the Dow still finished up...
Apple beats on earnings per share and raises holiday quarter forecast
After the close today Apple reported fiscal fourth quarter revenue of $64 billion. That was up from $62.9 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 and above the $63 billion consensus forecast from Wall Street analysts. Net income dropped to $13.7 billion from...
The Fed interest rate pause that …
Distresses? Refreshes? Isn’t important? Today, as expected the Federal Reserve cut the benchmark interest rate for the third time this year. The Fed lowers its benchmark rate 25 basis points to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%. At the same time the Fed signaled that it...
Merck continues to ride cancer drug Keytruda higher
Shares of Merck (MRK) closed up 3.50% today, October 29, after the company reported better than expected third quarter earnings. On a Non-GAAP basis earrings of $1.51 a share beat the Wall Street consensus by 27 cents a share. Revenue of $12.4 billion fell 6.7% year...
Oil earnings expected to disappoint starting with BP tomorrow and then continuing with ExxonMobil and Chevron on Friday
The oil supermajors–ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX),Royal Dutch Shell (RDS), Total (TOT) and BP (BP)–are expected to show a 42% year over year average plummet in third quarter earnings when they report earnings this week. That’s an even bigger slump...
What are the implications for FinTech disruption from Visa’s earnings?
It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement but it was enough to send share prices higher in after-hours trading by 1.1% on Thursday and by 0.8% in regular trading on Friday. Visa (V) earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter were better than expected. The company...
Consumers look to be holding up but I wouldn’t call them super-positive
The University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment was revised down to 95.5 in October from an initial reading of 96 today. That leaves the index at the monthly average for 2019. But well below the post-recession peak of 101.4 set in early 2018. Consumer...
Implications of McDonald’s earnings miss
On October 22 McDonald’s (MCD) reported third quarter earnings of $2.11 a share. That was a big 11 cents a share below Wall Street expectations. Revenue of $5.43 billion for the quarter was up just 1.1% year over year and $40 million below Wall Street consensus....
An Amazon quarter disappoints but not for the usual reasons
You know what an “Amazon quarter” feels like right? Lots of revenue growth but no earnings as capital spending eats profits? Well, that’s sort of what the company delivered today. But not quite. And the not quite is important. Usually an Amazon...
Microsoft’s earnings beat last night sets up Amazon and Apple earnings to come
Last night, October 23, after the market close, Microsoft (MSFT) reported earnings and revenue beats for its fiscal first quarter. Revenue climbed 14% year over year, beating Wall Street forecasts by $860 million. Earnings of $1.38 a share exceeded Wall Street...
Beyond Meat takes another beating on worries about next round of insider selling
Shares of Beyond Meat (BYND) dropped 7.99% to close below $100 (at $97.90) for the first time since June 3. The drop cut gains for the plant-based “meat” company since its IPO to a mere 292%. Driving the drop are fears that insiders will sell a day after...
A tale of two tech markets as Texas Instruments and Apple move in opposite directions.
Shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) closed down 7.48% today after the company reported that third-quarter earning felt $1.49 a share from $1.58 a share in the third quarter of 2018. Revenue dropped 11% year over year. On the other hand, shares of Apple continued to move...
Enthusiasm for this quarter’s earnings; worry about guidance for 2020
Today the Standard & Poor’s 500 matched a 12-week high and made yet another assault on a new all-time record. Better than expected earnings have been the market driver. Some 81% of the S&P 500 companies that have reported for the quarter so far have...
Warfare in the cloud as Microsoft and Amazon report earnings this week
This week brings an earnings “showdown” between Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN) in the cloud space as the two companies report earnings only a day apart (on Wednesday October 23 for Microsoft and Thursday October 24 for Amazon.) Microsoft’s cloud...
The tech ETF is actually Apple and Microsoft and a bunch of little guys
The Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) may indeed follow the technology sector of the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index. But don’t expect much in the way of diversification from the ETF. The latest figures on Yahoo Finance show that 19.55% of the...
Today the market is in “Give back some of those gains” mode on a disappointing retail sales report
It would be an overstatement, in my opinion, to say the market is trendless. I think there’s a definite and but unspectacular bias to the upside in the short-term–four weeks, say. It would be accurate, however, to say, there’s not much conviction to...
So how’s my “Tech is back” call (and picks of SWKS and CRUS) doing?
On October 8 I wrote “Tech is back” led by fact-based speculation that Apple (AAPL) had asked supplier to increase production of components for the iPhone 11 by 10%. That, obviously, was a good sign for Apple, which is set to announce earnings on October...
Odd day: stocks rise on bank earnings oil falls on global growth fears
Good earnings news from big U.S. banks drove U.S. stocks higher today. As of 3 p.m. New York time, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 1.10% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was ahead 1.03%. The NASDAQ Composite had climbed .28% and the Russell 2000 small...
So last Friday’s “agreement” on U.S.-China trade wasn’t really an agreement
China now says it wants to hold more talks this month to hammer out the details of the U.S.-China mini-deal announced by President Donald Trump on Friday before Chinese President Xi Jinping will sign it, both Bloomberg and the Washington Post are reporting today....
Emerson Electric moves gradually higher on private equity speculation
On the surface the creeping improvement in the price of Emerson Electric (EMR) shares seems odd. The company is a powerhouse in process manufacturing–you know industrial automation, industrial control and safety, and the Internet of Things. And those...
Market soars on “news” of U.S.-China trade war truce
We’ve been here before. We’ve had other days and other rallies on news, rumors, speculation that the U.S. and China would reach some kind of deal that amounts to a truce in the two countries’ trade war. We been disappointed in that story before when...
It’s a ping pong market over U.S.-China trade talks
Overnight financial markets tumbled on fears that U.S.-China talks to end their trade war were looking at failure. Today stocks are up again as hopes for a so-called “mini-deal” have advanced as China signaled that it might be open to such a limited deal,...
Adding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to JubakAM.com Special Report 10 Long-term Picks for a Short-term Market as Pick #6 and to my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio
It’s hard to get a handle on exactly how big the market called the Internet of Things will be. Bain Capital sats $520 billion by 2021. McKensey, another consulting company, says $11 trillion by 2021. The huge difference is a result of 1) what these...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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