Earnings forecasts are falling as we get close to the end of the quarter on September 30 and the start of earnings season in early October. Aggregate earnings per share estimate for companies in the Standard & Poor’s have dropped 5.5% in the past two months, according to Credit Suisse.
Lithium producer Albemarle (ALB) closed up 2.71% today after hitting an all-time high of $298.17 in intraday trading. The shares closed at $295.68. The gains for Albemarle, and across the lithium sector, came as Goldman Sachs upgraded lithium battery maker Freyr Battery (FREY) on projected higher demand for lithium batteries after the Inflation Reduction Act. Albemarle is a member of my Jubak Picks Portfolio where it is up 200.18% since my August 10, 2018 stock pick. The stock is also a member of my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio where it is up 221.67% since February 17, 2017.
After looking like it was over earlier in the week with a significant pull back on Tuesday, July 26, stocks have rallied in the last two days, gaining 3.85% by the Thursday, July 28 close from that Tuesday low. And right now all the ducks are lined up in a row for a strong move higher. (But you know what they say about Bear Market rallies right? They’re really hard to trade and they’re even harder to sell into.)
Those ducks?
We’ve had a great one-week rally/bounce/whatever in chip stocks. Nvidia, for example, was up 17.42% for the week that ended on Thursday, July 21. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was up 8.71% in that same period. But I think there are good reasons for thinking that this move was just a very short-term gain in a long-term Bear Market that remains in place. So today, I’m taking some chip money off the table.
In the last week Technology stocks, and chip stocks in particular, have staged a very impressive rally off of a really low base. Nvidia (NVDA), for example, is up 17.43% in the week that ended on July 21. That still leaves the stock down 39.43% for the year. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is up 15.36% in the last week. And it’s still down 37.85% for 2022. Qualcomm (QCOM) is up 1.85% for the week. And down 16.26% for the year. Impressive. But I’d be more inclined to see this as a sustainable rally if stocks were rising across the board–with tech and chips leading the way, perhaps.
Instead what I’m seeing is a rotation from safe and less risky stocks
My second Fundamental Value Pick in my Special Report 5 Fundamental Value Picks is Applied Materials (AMAT). Let’s go to the classic formula for calculating fundamental value of an asset, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, known affectionately by generations of MBA students as CAPM. Don’t worry. I’m not going to force you into the sometimes arcane mathematics of CAPM. Instead I’m going to use the formula as a framework for understanding what matters in calculating a fundamental value for a stock–as well for understanding how these factors fit together.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), the world’s largest independent chip producer, expects revenue to grow about 30% in 2022. Sales growth this year should accelerate from 2021’s 24.9% (in dollar terms), Chairman Mark Liu said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, June 8. That’s a bump higher on company guidance in April of growth topping mid- to high-20% in 2022.
My one-hundredth-and-forty-first YouTube video “Trend of the Week: Danger of a Lithium Drought” went up today. My Trend of the Week video looks at the effects of Chile’s 15-year drought on global lithium production and prices. In particular, I look at Chilean-based national producer SQM in comparison with Albemarle (ALB.) Albemarle has more diversified production and I think it is a better bet due to this diversity of supply, but lithium will still be a volatile area for the short term. Albemarle is a member of my Jubak Picks Portfolio (up 162% from August 10, 2018) and my long-term, 50 Stocks Portfolio (up 180% from February 17, 2017.)
There are bargains in this market. But how do you find them? Not, clearly, by looking to see what is cheaper than it was. The fear that’s stopping so many investors from loading up the truck now on Nvidia or Disney or Microsoft or Johnson Controls–all stocks that I really, really like for the long term–is that today’s “cheap” stocks will be tomorrow’s even “cheaper” stocks. So it’s time to dig into your investor’s toolbox and dust off those tried and true techniques for using company fundamentals to figure out the value of a stock. And for separating the real values in this sell off from those cheap stocks on the road to being cheaper.
Nvidia (NVDA) reported fiscal first quarter 2022 earnings after the after the bell close today, Wednesday, May 25, of $1.36 a share against Wall Street projections of $1.30. Revenue of $8.29 billion beat projections of $8.10 billion. Revenue fromm the data center unit was $3.75 billion, topping estimates of $3.63 billion. Game revenue of $3.62 billion beat expectations for $3.53 billion.
But the company guided lower for the fiscal second quarter with revenue of just $8.1 billion against Wall Street projection of $8.4 billings. The war in Ukraine and COVID lockdowns in Chia will cost the company $500 million in revenue, the company said.
In after-hours trading Nvidia shares were down 6.62% as of 5 p.m. today, May 25.
I’m actually surprised that shares of cyber-security company Palo Alto Networks (PANW) rose only 10.7% in after-hours trading after the company reported adjusted fiscal third quarter earnings of $1.79 a share. That was ahead of the adjusted earnings of $1.68 a share expected by analysts and it was up from $1.38 a share in the fiscal third quarter of 2021. Revenue of $1.39 billion, up from $1.07 billion a year ago, was ahead of analyst projections of $1.38 billion. Billings rose to $1.8 billion from $1.27 billion in 2021. But the big news, the news that powered the after-hours gains, came when executives at Palo Alto raised their full-year outlook for the third time in as many quarters
Ok, the bad news on profit margins from Target (TGT) was a big deal. No argument. When you’re operating margin falls to 5.37% when Wall Street was projecting 9.5%, it’s a big deal. And after yesterday’s earnings miss from Walmart (WMT), it’s reasonable to extrapolate and say the entire economy and stock market has a cost, inflation, and margin problem. But that doesn’t mean that every company has the same degree of problem. And it certainly doesn’t justify selling everything–and selling to the tune of big losses–shares of every company that sells stuff to consumers. And tomorrow, or the next day, I expect a little more analysis and discrimination in the market. Some of the stocks hit hardest today should rebound handily on that rethink. I’d put PepsiCo (PEP) and Coca-Cola (KO) at the head of that group.
