May 23, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, NVDA, Stock Alerts, Top 50 Stocks |
Yesterday, May 22, after the market close, Nvidia (NVDA) crushed Wall Street projections for revenue and earnings for the company’s fiscal first quarter of 2025. Nvidia reported that revenue soared 262% year-over-year to a record $26 billion, marking an 18% quarter-over-quarter increase. Adjusted earnings per share climbed 461% to $6.12. The Wall Street consensus had called for revenue of $24.65 billion and earnings per share of $5.59. And it even beat the Wall Street “whisper number,” which in a bullish momentum situation like this runs considerably above the official consensus. Data center revenue hit a record $22.6 billion, up 427% year over year. Data center revenue represents 87% of Nvidia’s total sales. For the current fiscal second quarter of 2025 Nvidia told investors to expect sales of $28 billion, up 107% year over year.
May 18, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
I’m expecting a key moment for momentum in a market that keeps setting new records on Wednesday, May 22, when Nvidia (NVDA) announces revenue and earnings for the company’s first fiscal quarter of 2025 and the quarter that ended in calendar April 2024. The consensus among Wall Street analysts is looking for the company to earn $5.17 a share. That would be a huge leap from 88 cents a share in the April 2023 quarter. The projections for revenue are every bit as optimistic.
May 15, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Today, May 15, the April Consumer Price Index report dangled new hope in front of investors. The all-items index annual rate of inflation dropped to an annual 3.4% rate from 3.5% in March. The core index, which leaves out food and energy prices, fell to an annual rate of 3.6%, down from 3.8% in March. Those annual rates are still way above the Federal Reserve’s inflation target of 2%. But after three straight reports where the inflation rate came in above market expectations todays report, which hit projections right on the mark, came as good news. In recent weeks Wall Street has speculated that inflation is set to resume its downward course starting with the April report. And after stalling above 3.5%, annual inflation would resume its downward path.
May 14, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Granted that the remarks weren’t delivered at the most high profile venue–a panel discussion at the Foreign Bankers Association meeting in Amsterdam–but I read Federal Reserve chairmen Jerome Powell as saying that the U.S.central bank might hold interest rates steady for longer than now expected by WallStreet. Ahead of new inflation data from the Consumer Price Index for April due tomorrow, anyway. On the day before the meeting economists were expecting the annual inflation rate at both the all-time and core levels to have dropped by 10 or 20 basis in April
May 10, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
According to the University of Michigan survey, U.S. consumer sentiment declined in early May to a six-month low as short-term inflation expectations and concerns about the job market picked up. The sentiment index slid to 67.4 in May from 77.2, according to the preliminary reading. The figure was weaker than all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Consumers expect prices will climb at an annual rate of 3.5% over the next year, the highest in six months and up from the 3.2% expected in April.
May 6, 2024 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
Social Security and Medicare will run out of money in just over a decade, a new government report warned Monday, May 6. Where’s the good news? Insolvency will come late than forecast last year thanks to the hot job market. The trustees for the massive retirement programs project that Social Security will be insolvent by 2035, and Medicare by 2036, which would force benefit cuts. Congress and the White House could act in 2025 as part of an intense debate on the extension of the Trump tax cuts of 2017, which are due to expire in 2027.
May 2, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
On Wednesday, May 1, the Federal Reserve decided NOT to cut interest rates at its May 1 meeting. That was the decision expected by the financial markets. And Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell tried his best to keep traders from speculating that the Fed would actually raise interest rates, rather than cut them, in the remainder of 2024.
April 30, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The employment cost index (ECI), which measures wages and benefits, increased 1.2%, the most in a year, after rising 0.9% at the end of 2023, according to a report from Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday, April 30. The increase was greater than projected by any economist in Bloomberg’s survey of economists.Compared with a year earlier, the ECI, the Fed’s preferred measure of employment costs, climbed 4.2% after a similar annual increase in the fourth quarter.
April 30, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Drum roll, please. The Federal Reserve interest-rate-setting body, the Open Market Committee, meets Wednesday afternoon and is expected to do…nothing. The CME FedWatch Tool puts the odds of a rate cut at the May 1 meeting at 3.9%. Odds of cut aren’t much better for the June 12 meeting-7.9%–or the July 31 meeting–22.2%. It’s not until the September 18 meeting that odds get to something like even with the FedWatch Tool showing odds of a cut at 44.8%. With the November meeting odds that the Fed will cut climb to 57%. In my opinion, December is the month for the first cut. But the fact that the Fed won’t move on interest rates tomorrow doesn’t mean that the U.S. central bank will do absolutely nothing.
April 26, 2024 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
Yesterday we had a report of core Personal Consumption Expenditure for March that showed core inflation ticking up to an annual rate of 3.8% from 3.7%. Core inflation, if you remember, looks at prices after excluding more volatile food and energy prices, The reasonable conclusion was that inflation was remaining stubbornly higher than the Federal Reserves % target. And that the first cut to interior rates from the Fed wouldn’t come until December, instead of July or September. Today we got the report on all-items PCE inflation.
April 25, 2024 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
How views on interest rates have changed since the start of 2024. Then, in January, the consensus view called for as many as six interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in 2024 for a total of 150 basis points in cuts to the Fed’s benchmark interest rate. Today, after a dip in first quarter GDP below a 2% annual rate and an uptick in core PCE inflation, the markets are pricing in just 33 basis points in rate cuts and quite possibly no cut until the Fed’s December 18 meeting.
April 25, 2024 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
U.S. economic growth slowed in the first three months of the year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported today. Gross Domestic Product (GSP) grew at an annualized rate of just 1.6%. That’s a big retreat from the 3.4% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2023. Just as important as the drop in the growth rate itself is the reason for the decline.