Tesla (TSLA) crushed Wall Street projections for first quarter earnings today, Wednesday, April 20. After the market close, the company reported record revenue of $18.756 billion, up 80.5% from the first quarter of 2021. (Wall Street analysts had expected revenue of $17.76 billon.) And earnings of $3.22 a share. That was well ahead of Wall Street expectations for $2.89 a share.
In this post let me take another step back to look at the one of the larger economic forces revealed by the Netflix miss. I’d argue that the Nexflix miss should put pricing power and questions of what price increases will hurt demand up near the top of your stock picking check list. Especially since the streaming service’ loss of 200,000 subscribers this quarter and the ported loss of 2 million subscribers next quarter qualifies as just the first shoe to drop.
Shares of Netflix (NFLX), fell 25.73% today, April 19, in after-hours trading after the company announced first quarter earnings. (In regular trading the shares had gained 3.23%.) The stock was already down 42% for 2022 before today’s after-hours plunge. The bad news: In the first quarter of 2022 Netflix (NFLX) lost 200,000 subscribers. That was a bit short of the company’s guidance for the addition of 2.5 million subscribers for the quarter. And to put a cherry on top of the bad news in the company’s earnings report, Netflix forecast that it would lose another 2 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2022.
You don’t need to look in obscure, dark corners of the financial market for the reason for today’s big drop in oil prices. The IMF sharply cut its forecast for global growth today and China announced that it would keep its Zero Cover lockdowns in effect. A slower global and Chinese economies will lower global demand for oil. But… After pulling back to establish new positions, Russia has launched an intense bombardment all across Ukraine to soften up the country as Russia troops roll into Ukraine’s eastern region, the home of pro-Russian separatist governments. The new fighting promises to be even more vicious than the old fighting and already Ukraine’s Western supporters are looking for new sanctions to impose on Russia
Forget about all the hoopla over Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter (TWTR). (If you can.) On Wednesday, when the electric car leader announces first quarter 2022 earnings the story will be China, China, China.
Delta Air Lines (DAL) reported a smaller than expected first quarter loss today and shares rose strongly after the company said a strong rebound in summer traffic would turn results positive in the second quarter. As of noon New York time Delta shares were up 4.51%. The airline lost $1.23 a share, slightly less than the Wall Street consensus of a $1.27 a share loss
As of noon New York time today, April 12, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 0.47% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had gained 0.34%. The NASDAQ Composite was higher by 0.73% and the NASDAQ 100 had moved up by 0.67%. The small cap Russell 2000 had tacked on 1.49%. And then by the close stocks had given up all these gains and more. For the day, the S&P 500 closed down 0.34% and the Dow was off 0.26%. The NASDAQ Composite ended lower by 0.30% and the NASDAQ 100 was down 0.36%. The small cap Russell 2000 managed to close up 0.33% on the day.
Just want to make sure that no one missed the sell recommendations in yesterday’s Saturday Night Quarterback post. Big banks will kick off another earnings season beginning with JPMorgan Chase (JPM) on Wednesday, April 13. Citigroup (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC) follow on April 14. Bank of America (BAC) reports on April 18. Bank earnings forecasts present a complicated picture for the quarter–which is only appropriate since that’s true of Standard & Poor’s 500 earnings forecasts as a whole.
As of 3 p.m. New York time Monday, April 11, airline stocks were rallying strongly ahead of Delta Air Lines (DAL) earnings report Wednesday morning. Delta shares were up 4.68%. Shares of American Airlines (AAL) had gained 3.04%. And United Airlines Holdings (UAL) was ahead 1.72%.
Big banks will kick off another earnings season beginning with JPMorgan Chase (JPM) on Wednesday, April 13. Citigroup (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC) follow on April 14. Bank of America (BAC) reports on April 18. Bank earnings forecasts present a complicated picture for the quarter–which is only appropriate since that’s true of Standard & Poor’s 500 earnings forecasts as a whole.
Pfizer (PFE) will buy privately held respiratory syncytial virus drug maker ReViral for up to $525 million. Wall Street liked the deal–the stock was up 4.33% today, April 7–because it fits with Pfizer’s RNA virus program, which produced a successful vaccine for Covid-19.
I think these financial market curves will let you map out the longer stories of Federal Reserve interest rate increases and a potential recession–and then chart the shorter stories of war in the Ukraine, global oil and natural gas crunches, summer Pandemic relief, global food crisis, computer chip shortages (and whatever else you think might be important) under those longer curves. That will let you decide when to buy and sell (and what) in order to profit from short-term stories while preparing your portfolio for the longer arcs.
