Morning Briefing
April 20, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Tesla’s (TSLA) first-quarter earnings, reported yesterday April 19, after the market close, met expectations. But first-quarter automotive gross profit margins came in worse than expected. Tesla reported a profit of 85 cents a share, meeting expectations, on sales of $23.33 billion, just a touch below forecasts for $23.67 billion. Tesla’s other business generated a record $303 million in gross profit. Tesla deployed 3.9 gigawatt hours of battery storage in the quarter, up about 300% year over year. But, automotive gross profit margins, excluding regulatory credits, came in below 16%, down from about 21%
April 19, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Last night after the market close, Netflix (NFLX) reported first-quarter 2023 results that showed new subscribers grew by just 1.75 million in the first quarter against expectations for 2.3 million additions. Earnings and revenue projections disappointed investors: Netflix said it anticipates earning $2.84 per share on $8.24 billion in the second quarter. Wall Street analysts had forecast earnings of $3.05 per share on $8.5 billion in revenue. For the first quarter, revenue and earnings for the first quarter roughly matched Wall Street consensus estimates. Revenue was $8.16 billion versus an expected $8.18 billion. Earnings per share were $2.88 versus $2.86 expected Today, April 19, shares of Netflix were down 3.34% as of noon New York time.
April 18, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
The exact date that the federal government could run out of accounting gimmicks and actually default on the national debt is open to debate. Could be June or July or as late as December or even sometime in 2024. The estimates are all over the block. Which is one reason that the stock market isn’t pricing in this potential event. The timing largely depends on the pace of tax payments. The more the government collects and the sooner, the farther away a default would be. Now with income tax day upon us, Yahoo Finance is reporting two new studies that say a default is on the schedule for earlier than expected.
April 14, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
It is good, maybe great news this morning from three of the country’s biggest banks. JPMorgan Chase posted a surprise 2% increase in deposits and first-quarter net income surged 49%. Wells Fargo (WFC) saw net interest income rocket by 45%. Citigroup (C) reported a 23% gain in net interest income and a 4% increase in fixed-income trading. As of 2:30 p.m. New York time JPMorgan Chase shares were up 7.33%. Wells Fargo had tacked on a small 0.05% gain. And Citigroup was up 4.88%. And all the major stock indexes were significantly in the red.
April 12, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
All items inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index rose by just 0.1% in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. That is a big drop from the 0.4% increase in February. The year-over-year all-items inflation rate fell to 5.0% in March. from 6.0% in February. Inflation is coming down and it’s coming down pretty fast, right? Well, no. The core inflation rate, which excludes energy and food prices on the theory that they are too volatile to count as “real” inflation, rose 0.4% in March after climbing 0.5% in February. The year-over-year core inflation rate rose slightly to 5.6%. So inflation is proving to be very sticky.
April 11, 2023 | Daily JAM, INTC, Jubak Picks, Morning Briefing |
I will sell Intel (INTC) out of my Jubak Picks Portfolio tomorrow, April 12. The position was up 14.55% as of the close on April 11 since I added it on February 8, 2023.
April 10, 2023 | AAPL, Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, Mid Term, Morning Briefing, Top 50 Stocks |
Shipments by all PC makers slumped 29% in the first quarter to a level below that in early 2019, according to tech market analysts at IDC. Lenovo Group and Dell Technologies registered drops of more than 30%, while HP (HPQ) was down 24.2%. No major brand was spared from the slowdown, with Asustek Computer Inc. rounding out the top 5 with a 30.3% fall. But Apple (AAPL)let the plunge with personal computer shipments down by 40.5% in the first quarter.
April 8, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Look for a disconcerting CPI inflation report for March on Wednesday, April 12. The headline, all-items inflation rate is expected to drop to an annual rate of 5.2% from 6%, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would be good news for the Federal Reserve’s effort to lower inflation. Except that economists expect the core Consumer Price Index inflation rate, which excludes more volatile energy and food prices, to rise to an annual rate of 5.6% from 5.5%. And the core rate is the inflation rate that the Fed watches.
April 7, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
U.S. payrolls rose by 236,000 in March. That was in line with forests from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised its February report upward to show 326,000 jobs added in that month.) The official unemployment rate slipped to 3.5% from 3.6%. Average hourly wages increased at a 4.2% rate year-over-year. That was below estimates and the slowest growth since June 2021. The lower total for new jobs in the month is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick for investors hoping that the Federal Reserve will decide its job is done and end its interest rate increases after one final 25 basis point increase at the Fed’s May 3 meeting. But the market read today was that the drop isn’t big enough to convince the Fed.
April 6, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits last week were a stronger than expected 228,000, the Labor Department reported today. The department also revised the numbers from the week before to 246,000, up by 48,000 A separate report Thursday showed job-cut announcements from U.S.-based employers rose 15% in March from the prior month, marking the highest first-quarter total since 2020, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
April 5, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Shares of Western Alliance Bancorp (WAL) were down 15.45% as of 10.00 a.m. New York time today, April 5, as the Whac-A-Mole regional bank crisis continues. The shares are down 50% in 2023. The bank updated its financial disclosures Tuesday–this is the fourth update since March 10 so there’s enough smoke here to make investors worried that there might be a fire–without providing more detail about deposit balances at the bank. The lack of deposit data stood out to bank analysts because the previous three updates included that information.
April 4, 2023 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
The Labor Department’s JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) report this morning showed that job vacancies at U.S. employers dropped in February to the lowest since May 2021. The number of available positions decreased to 9.9 million from a downwardly revised 10.6 million a month earlier. That’s still indicative of a tight labor market,
