Tuesday, July 30th, 2024
Trading activity revisited the “bifurcation trade” today. As of the second week of July, the high-flying, tech-heavy Nasdaq and S&P 500 began tacking down while the blue-chip Dow and small-cap Russell 2000 worked their way higher. This was one of those trading days, with the Dow up +244 points, +0.60%, while the Nasdaq slid -228 points, -1.31%. The S&P and Russell were -0.51% and +0.33%, respectively. Year-to-date, the Nasdaq is still +16% while the Dow is now +8%.
Economic prints from earlier in the day show a still-growing home price market (for May), though slowing, and a Consumer Confidence headline for July that came in higher than expected: 100.3 versus 99.5 expected and 97.8 reported in the prior quarter. But neither of these are likely to move the needle for the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which commenced today and will release another non-move of interest rates tomorrow afternoon.
Meanwhile, earnings season hits full stride this afternoon. Microsoft MSFT beat estimates on both top and bottom lines for its fiscal Q4, with earnings of $2.95 per share outperforming the Zacks consensus by a nickel on revenues of $64.7 billion — ahead of the $64.19 billion expected. This happens to be a traditionally softer quarter for Microsoft, but this hasn’t stopped investors from selling off shares on the news: the stock was down -7.5% initially, now -5% at this hour.
The miss came from its Azure cloud business. Coming in at +29% year over year, it was a slight miss from the +30.2% expected. While it’s important for cloud-based numbers to continue climbing, even for the biggest cloud players like Azure, we note a steady uptick in AI-related cloud services: +8% in this quarter, +7% last time and +6% in the quarter before that. Microsoft shares are +14% year to date, not including the afternoon selloff, +25% over the past one year.
Advanced Micro Devices AMD shares are climbing on its Q2 results. Earnings of 69 cents per share surpassed estimates by 2 cents, on revenues of $5.84 billion versus $5.71 billion projected. Record revenues in the Data Center business, +115% from a year ago, is helping shares move higher in late trading, as is the upwardly revised guidance for next-quarter revenues. Further guidance on its M1300 chip will need to wait for the conference call. Shares are up +4% at this hour.
Starbucks SBUX shares are up following fiscal Q3 results after the close. Earnings of 93 cents per share just met the Zacks consensus, while revenues of $9.11 billion came in light of the $9.22 billion analysts were looking for. Global comps were -3% overall: North America was -2%, International -7% and China -14%. Yet shares gained +2% on the news, as the heavy selloff year-to-date (-18%) looks to have already priced-in much of Starbucks’ bad news.
Pinterest PINS is having a tough late trading session. The visual user-board firm beat Q2 earnings estimates by a penny to 29 cents per share and its revenues of $854 million outpaced the $847.8 million we had anticipated, with Global Monthly Active Users of 522 million above expectations. Yet its revenue guidance for next quarter — $885-900 million — is well beneath the $912.9 million analysts had been expecting. Shares had been down -21%, but have slightly rebounded to -14%.
Mondelez MDLZ also had a mixed quarter. Earnings of 86 cents per share solidly outperformed the estimate of 78 cents, but revenues of $8.34 billion missed the $8.29 billion consensus, which itself was lower year over year. But the international snacks company said it is well-positioned to take advantage of new value offerings in the U.S.; as Americans continue to combat inflation, Mondelez plans to be present with lower-priced alternatives. Late trading had been higher, but now sits around closing levels.
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