Blow-out first quarter earnings results from the big banks didn’t produce huge gains this week–and that’s actually reassuring to me because it says a significant number of investors are still paying attention to fundamentals
China’s Bureau of Statistics reported that the country’s gross domestic product climbed 18.3% in the first quarter from the first quarter of 2020. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected 18.5% year over year growth.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury fell by 6 basis points to 1.58% today, April 15.
Retail sales rose a stunning 9.8% in March from February’s pace, the Commerce Department reported today, April 15. In the earlier month retail sales fell 2.7%.
Initial claims for unemployment in regular state-run unemployment programs fell to 576,000 last week. Economists had projected 710,000 new claims for the week.
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. The nineteenth YouTube video “3 more stock pics for earning season” went up today.
AI stocks–actually any stock with a passing acquaintance to artificial intelligence technologies–stood out on the upside today, April 13, in a generally ho-hum market The Standard & Poor’s 500, let me remind you, rose just 0.33% on the day. But AI stocks–by the most generous definition–scorched higher.,
Microsoft (MSFT) will buy speech-recognition pioneer Nuance Communications (NUAN) for $19.6 billion in cash. The move will speed Microsoft’s ambitions in the healthcare digital record keeping market. Microsofts goal is to use voice recognition technology to develop products that feee doctors from note-taking and allows more effective search of those notes for meaningful treatment solutions. The offer at $56 a share was a premium of 23% to the close for Nuance’s shares on Friday, April 9. Microsoft forecasts that the acquisition will result in a loss than 1% hit to earnings in the fiscal year that begins on July 1 and will add to earnings in the following year.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.6% in March from February, the Labor Department reported this morning. Year over year consumer prices are 2.6% higher than they were in March 2020. Economists had projected that the headline CPI would climb 0.5% in March from February and 2.5% year over year. Financial markets shrugged off the numbers.
Nvidia (NVDA) announced its first microprocessor for the server market today, April 12. Right now Intel (INTC) owns around 90% of the market for server processors. And the company also reported that first-quarter revenue “is tracking” above its previous forecast. Revenue in the quarter ending in April is now expected to be higher than $5.3 the billion, which Nvidia projected on February 24. Nvidia shares were up 5.62% today on the news
Looking at the recent performance numbers on the 20 stocks I’m tracking in my Dip-O-Meter as of the close on Friday April 9, I have to conclude that for most of these stocks it’s time to take a pause on any “buy on the dip” opportunities. What I’m seeing in this sample is a general weakening of the upward bounce on rally days from these stocks–and without a strong bounce on a good day there’s not much reason to buy on the dip.
Over the weekend I posted that I’d be looking at a possible buy of Call Options on the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) today–depending on how the VIX behaved in the Monday action. Today the VIX regained some of the ground that it gave up last week, closing ahead 1.92% to 1701 after closing at 16.69 on Friday. And I’m going to hold off on buying VIX Call Options until I see the trend in first quarter earnings reports.
