So much for fears the Disney (DIS) would follow the disappointing course plotted by Netflix (NFLX) and report disappointing numbers for new subscriptions to its Disney Plus streaming service. For the December quarter, the company’s first quarter of fiscal 2022, Disney Plus added 11.8 million subscribers, easily beating analyst projections for 7.3 million new subscribers.
Investors have really impressed by Amazon’s fourth quarter earnings report. And there were some impressive numbers in the report for the quarter. Amazon’s cloud services unit, AWS, saw revenue growth alleviate again to a 40% growth rate. Revenue growth from from advertising did decelerate to a 32% growth rate but that’s still really impressive given what other companies have been saying about a weak ad market in the quarter. Frankly, if Amazon were just the cloud and digital advertising businesses I’d be shouting buy even if the stock is trading at a trailing 12-month price-to-earnings ratio of 49.81. But Amazon is also an e-commerce company and the numbers there didn’t look all that great.
With the end of the Lunar New Year holiday and the reopening of China’s stock markets, China’s state-backed investment funds have started buying shares of the Chinese stocks traded on U.S. markets. The move follows actions by the People’s Bank of China to inject cash into the economy and financial markets.
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. My ninety-seventh YouTube video “QuickPick Xylem Update” went up today.
The story to end last week was Amazon’s (AMZN) big earnings surprise on Thursday. Fourth-quarter sales increased 9.4% to $137.4 billion. Profit was $27.75 a share, aided largely by a pretax gain from the company’s investment in Rivian, which went public in November. Analysts, on average, projected revenue of $137.8 billion and earnings of $3.77 a share. (I’d note that the $22.75 a share in earnings and the projected $3.77 are not comparable due to that huge one-time gain from the Rivian IPO.) Wall Street was especially impressed by the performance of Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud-computing division. AWS recorded sales of $17.8 billion, a 40% year-over-year increase, and operating profit of $5.29 billion. Adverting revenue for the quarter was was $9.7 billion, a 32% increase from a year earlier. Wall Street also gushed about the company’s decision to raise the price of its Amazon Prime membership by $20 a year to $139
U.S. crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate rose above $90 a barrel–it closed at $90.87, up 0.60% for the day, for the first time since 2014. International benchmark Brent crude gained 0.42% to close at $91.53 a barrel. Of course, it took a wild confluence of events to push prices above $90.
OPEC+ meets tomorrow and the oil cartel and friends like Russia is expected to approve an increase in production that will reduce last year’s cuts in production. But the odds are that the decision won’t matter.
When airline stocks come off a bottom, they come off fast and big. And I think that’s what we’re going to see over the next few quarters of 2022. Which means it’s time to buy. I could be early but the extreme volatility of stocks in the sector means that if you wait too long, you’ll miss the juiciest gains. Tomorrow, February 1, I’ll be adding shares of Delta Air Lines (DAL) to my JubakPicks Portfolio with a target price of $46. That’s just below the 200-day moving average and slightly further below the March 7, 2021 high of $49.83 highlighted in my last revision of the Dip-O-Meter this morning, January, 31.
I’m looking for a mixed bag of BIG TECH earnings from Alphabet (GOOG), Meta Platforms (FB), and Amazon (AMZN). Unless Meta Platforms and Amazon can deliver big earnings surprises, I don’t think these reports will lift the market appreciably. And the week will end with the January jobs report.
It’a always dangerous to construct a trend from Friday’s trading. Especially when the earlier part of the week has been so strong in one direction or another. (In this case, down, down, down.) Ahead of the weekend, stocks often reverse the trend from earlier in the week as sellers (in this case) decide that they don’t want to be quite so bearish until the market opens on Monday. So it’s not surprising that stocks gained today on nothing especially qualifying as news. But with all those caveats, I still found today’s action “interesting” and “perhaps” indicative of a future trend. Not only were stocks as a whole strongly higher–the Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 2.44% on the day–but technology stocks led the move to the upside.
The reaction to Microsoft’s (MSFT) earnings report yesterday after the market close tells you that this market is poised at an earnings inflection point. Earnings, especially technology company earnings, are going to be strong this quarter, but earnings growth rate will be down from the big Pandemic recovery growth rates of 2021. Will the solid earnings growth this quarter be enough to stabilize this market? Which brings me to Microsoft.
Take a look at Peloton Interactive (PTON) and Netflix (NFLX) just in case you need a reminder of one of the essential characteristics of this stock market. One that makes it so hard to tell where the market as a whole is going, and what individual stocks are headed up or down (and often down big time.) What growth rate should an investor use in trying to value the stock? Who knows? Which is exactly the point and not a problem limited to Peloton in this economy. I’ve found a handful of stocks with reliable internal growth stories that make them great buy-on-the-dip candidates for over performance in the second half of 2022. I’m making three of those stocks–Apple (AAPL), Disney (DIS), and Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG)–my last 3 picks for my Special Report
