The Disney July 16 Call Options (strike price $170) are up another 17.98% today, May 25, as of 1:30 p.m. New York time to $9.91. I’m going to make my profit in this option position today ahead of the potential volatility later this week ahead of Friday’s big inflation data release. I bought these options back on May 17 at $7.17 a contract. I’m closing the position with a 32.6% gain.
Oil prices have bounced back big time and with them the prices on oil stocks. I still think the long-term trend is against oil producers as efforts to combat global warming lead to lower consumption of fossil fuels. And I’d prefer not to own any oil and natural gas shares–even in as “progressive” a company as Equinor. I’m going to take advantage of the rally in oil prices to sell these shares out of my Jubak Picks Portfolio with a small 0.9% gain since I established that position in May 2012.
Nvidia’s (NVDA) board has declared a 4 for 1 stock split effective after the close on July 19. Assuming that share holders approve at the company’s June 3 annual meeting. (Gee, you think shareholders would vote against a split?) The stock is up 4.1% today, May 24, at the close. On first look, it seems that news of a split still boosts the price of a stock. But the Nvidia story is a bit more complicated than that.
The chip shortage that has hurt technology companies such as Apple (AAPL) and hammered auto producers continues to pay dividends to Applied Materials (AMAT), the dominant manufacturer of equipment used to make semiconductors. Yesterday, May 20, after the market close in New York, Applied Materials reported fiscal second-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.63 a share against 89 cents a share in the second quarter of the last fiscal year. Revenue rose to $5.58 billion from $3.96 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2020.
Yesterday, May 20, after the market closed, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) reported third-quarter fiscal 2021 non-GAAP earnings of $1.38 per share. That beat the Wall Street consensus by almost 8%. Last earnings for the third quarter of the fiscal year were $1.17. Revenue gained 24% year over year to $1.07 billion. That was slightly above the Wall Street projection of $1.06 billion. After the earnings announcement the company raised guidance for the fiscal 2021 fourth quarter to project earnings per share of $1.42 to $.44 and year over year revenue growth of 23$ to 24% to $1.65 billion to $1.715 billion. For all of fiscal 2021 the company forecast adjusted earnings of $5.97 to $5.99 a share. That was up from an earlier projection of $5.80 to $5.90 a share.
Here are my first five stock picks for my Special Report on finding “Real Green” Stocks. These are my “low-hanging fruit” stocks for climate change.
Last week’s sell off and rally, which left the Standard & Poor’s 500 down 1.4% for the week, resulted in farther dips in many of the Dip-O-Meter stocks. The picture that emerges is much more complicated than simple advice to “Buy on this dip.”
Last night I said that I’d buy the Disney Call Options for July 16 at either the $170 or $175 strike price. On Friday, I noted that the spread between the two options seemed especially large at 38.4% and that I’d wait for Monday trading to give me more of a clue on which option to prefer. Today I’m going with the $170 July 16 Call Options (DIS210716C00170000) because with today’s drop to $170.01 they remain slightly in the money and I think they’re more likely to give me a significant gain during the life of the option.
Shares of Disney (DIS) dropped like a stone when the company reported after the close on May 13 that subscriptions to its Disney+ streaming service fell short of Wall Street projections for the March quarter. The shares closed at $178.37 on May 13 before the report and then opened the next morning at $169.57. They recovered some ground during the day and closed at $173.70 on Friday, May 14, down another 2.60% on the day. I’ve been arguing recently and repeatedly that I think Disney is one of the best stocks to own for a post-vaccine recovery economy. Sure, the subscription gains for Disney+ are likely to slow now that we’re not all locked in our homes and going stir-crazy. But the company’s most profitable unit–the big entertainment parks have been just about shut down during the pandemic and the California parks just started to reopen at the very end of April. I see the drop on the March quarter results as a substantial buying opportunity.
Disney (DIS) shares tumbled by 3.64% in after-hours trading after the company reported fiscal second quarter numbers that beat Wall Street estimates on earnings but missed projections on revenue and on subscribers to the company’s Disney+ streaming service. Adjusted earnings per share were 79 cents versus a projected 32 cents a share. (For the second quarter of 2020 the company reported earnings of $1.53 a share.) Revenue of $15.62 billion for the quarter was a bit shy of Wall Street projections of $15,85 billion. The big miss came in subscription growth for the company’s paid streaming service. Disney+ topped 100 million subscribers for the first time–just 16 months after the late 2019 launch of the service. (Competitor and streaming leading Netflix had 208 million global subscribers at the end of its most recently reported quarter.) The stock dropped on the news, however, since analysts had been looking for 110.3 million subscribers by the end of the quarter.
Sure looks like a market struggling with rotations between growth and value stocks. One day the growth stocks sell off on fears of higher interest rates and rising inflation or something–and because after such a strong rally in the style growth stocks are very expensive. And that same day value stocks move higher because increasing economic growth is a very, very good thing for a style that depends on a strong economy for much of its revenue gains. The next day the market’s preference reverses and growth again outperforms value. What’s a poor investor to do? Especially the long-term investors with very long time horizons that are the focus for my new “Millennial Portfolio (for investors with more time than money.)” How about a few stocks that offer both growth and value? I’ve got two stocks today that I’m going to add to the Millennial Portfolio: Deere (DE) and Southern Copper (SCCO)
Researchers looking for a way to improve the tolerance of the Arabica coffee plant that accounts for 56% of global coffee production may have found their cuppa in Sierra Leone. Coffea stenophylla grows at a mean annual temperature up to 12.24 degrees higher than Arabica. And coffee tasters say, according to Bloomberg, it has a flavor similar to Arabica rather than to the more temperature tolerant Robusta coffee used now in instant and other bulk coffees. Global coffee production is threatened by rising temperatures
