A few more earnings beats looks like. Johnson & Johnson Reports Q3 2023 Results (JNJ) Bank of America Reports Third-Quarter 2023 Financial Results (BAC) Lockheed Martin Reports Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results (LMT)
Retail sales keep up with a strong consumer apparently. I would figure this will continue as we enter the holiday shopping season soon. US retail sales beat expectations in boost to third-quarter GDP growth expectations WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - U.S. retail sales increased more than expected in September as households stepped up purchases of motor vehicles and spent more at restaurants and bars, cementing expectations that economic growth accelerated in the third quarter. Strong demand illustrated by the report from the Commerce Department on Tuesday, however, raises the risk of the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates in December. The data followed on the heels of stronger-than-expected employment growth and consumer price readings in September. "The economy looks like it is getting used to the new normal of interest rates being higher for longer because shoppers are not taking a break that's for sure," said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS. "Fed officials have another rate hike this year up on their forecast board, and they will need to use it, if the economic data continues to surprise economists on the upside." Retail sales rose 0.7% last month. Data for August was revised higher to show sales advancing 0.8% instead of 0.6% as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales rising 0.3% in September. Retail sales are mostly goods and are not adjusted for inflation.
I noticed NVDA had a rough start out of the gate today....at one point was down around 7% after the news ran with the US/China chip fight continuing. Looks like NVDA is trying to claw back after that little news story at a bit under 4%....so it is trying to shake off the negative "short term" news cycle.
We are seeing a market come-back at the moment. the markets need to get over the economic data.....yes....there is and will be NO recession. The economy is strong and does not care about tthe FED or interest rates. The average person could not care less in their daily lives. Retail sales smash expectations in September with US consumer slowdown nowhere in sight https://finance.yahoo.com/news/reta...umer-slowdown-nowhere-in-sight-123221872.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "September retail sales grew from the prior month, reflecting continued resilience in the American consumer despite predictions of a slowdown. Retail sales rose 0.7% in September from the previous month, more than doubleWall Street's estimates for 0.3% growth. Sales excluding auto and gas increased 0.6%, above estimates for a 0.1% increase compiled by Bloomberg. Meanwhile, August's sales were revised up to 0.8%from a previously reported 0.6% increase. The September report, released by the Commerce Department, offers a snapshot of consumer spending at a time when economic data has been coming in largely stronger than expected despite the Federal Reserve's interest rate hiking campaign as the central bank seeks to cool inflation. September's retail sales growth comes despite mounting headwinds facing the consumer like a tightening credit environment, gas prices hitting 2023 highs to end the summer, and the resumption of student loan payments. "While mounting headwinds to consumer incomes mean we expect spending growth to slow in the months ahead, the risks that spending contracts outright are fading," Oxford Economics lead US economist Michael Pearce wrote in a research note on Tuesday. Nine of the 13 categories highlighted in the release saw increases from a month ago while sporting goods was the lone category unchanged from August. Sales at miscellaneous store retailers led all categories, shooting up 3% from August. Sales at nonstore retailers popped 1.1% while sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers was the other leader, rising 1% from September. The biggest laggards were electronics & appliance stores as well as clothing sales, which both dropped 0.8% compared to the month prior. Resilient consumer spending has been considered one of the key factors that has kept the US out of a recession in 2023, but some banks have recently indicated a slowdown is still likely ahead. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon noted on Friday that consumers and businesses "generally remain healthy," but their cash buffers are being spent down. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan described the state of the US economy as one in which the consumer is still spending ahead of last year but "continuing to slow."" MY COMMENT Sorry......JP Morgan....the consumer does not care what you think or say. Wages are way up for low end jobs since the pandemic. Jobs that paid $8 to $13 before the pandemic now pay in the neighborhood of $20 per hour or more. Two earners working minimal service jobs....like fast food....can now bring in about $100,000 per year. I see nothing that indicates that the consumer is wearing out. There is also NOTHING that the FED can say or do that is going to change this....they have zero control over the consumer.
Smokie and I have pretty well covered the retail data......and....I note that the DOW and the SP500 are now positive with the NASDAQ soon to be. This is in spite of the Ten Year Treasury being up at this moment at 4.816%. Reality.......only short term traders should be obsessing over the Ten Year rate. In spite of the media attention and commentary that you see every day.
I dont really think NVDA will care at all....they can sell every one of these chips that they produce. Biden to cut China off from more Nvidia chips, expand curbs to more countries https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-cut-china-off-more-124738198.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration said on Tuesday it plans to halt shipments to China of more advanced artificial intelligence chips designed by Nvidia and others, part of a suite of measures aimed at stopping Beijing from getting cutting-edge U.S. technologies to strengthen its military. The rules, described by senior administration officials in a press briefing on Monday evening, restrict a broader swathe of advanced chips and chipmaking tools to a greater number of countries including Iran and Russia, and blacklist Chinese chip designers Moore Thread and Biren. The new measures aim to hamper China's military development by closing loopholes in regulations released last October and will probably be updated "at least annually," according to Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo. The goal is to limit China's access to "advanced semiconductors that could fuel breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and sophisticated computers that are critical to (Chinese) military applications," she said, stressing the administration was not seeking to hurt Beijing economically. The United States and China are locked in a years-long technology war, but the sweeping curbs released last October further escalated tensions between the superpowers. CHINA-ONLY CHIPS HIT In a statement following publication of the rules, Top AI chip designer Nvidia said it complies with regulations and does not expect "a near-term meaningful impact on our financial results." The company has made chips such as the A800 and H800 that walked right up the line of the previous rules to continue selling to China, and AMD, also impacted by the rules, has said it plans a similar strategy. Nvidia's business has soared since the imposition of last year's rules because its China-only chips are still better than alternatives. The Silicon Valley firm is currently selling almost every chip it can procure as worldwide demand outstrips supply, but would be hurt in the long term as Chinese chip firms seek to fill any voids left by U.S. companies. Nvidia's A800 and H800 chips will be hit by the new regulations, due to a change in chip parameters aimed at capturing a greater number of chips. But the rules will exempt most consumer chips used in laptops, smartphones and gaming, though some will be subject to licensing and notification requirements by U.S. officials. "The fact is, China, even after the update of this rule, will import hundreds of billions of dollars of semiconductors from the United States," Raimondo said, emphasizing that the goal of the measures was not to hammer U.S. companies. The previous rules imposed a two-pronged test that measured both a chip’s computing performance and its ability to communicate with other chips, an important measure in AI supercomputers where thousands of chips are strung together to chew through huge amounts of data. Nvidia and Intel created special chips for the Chinese market that retained the powerful computing capabilities but limited communications speeds to stay inside the previous rules. Biren and Moore Thread, whose U.S. suppliers will now face a tough licensing requirement before shipping products to them, are both Chinese startups founded by former Nvidia employees in China and aim to compete with the U.S. AI chip giant. The rules released on Tuesday eliminate the communication speed limits and focus on computing performance, which will have the effect of halting sales of Nvidia's A800 and H800 chips for the China market, according to a senior administration official. U.S. officials on Tuesday added a new measure to restrict chips that exceed a certain level of "performance density," a measure focused on how much computing power can be packed into a given amount of silicon, a senior administration official said. The senior administration official said this rule was meant to prevent companies from trying to work around restrictions on full chips by using a technology called "chiplets," where firms could try to join together small pieces called chiplets into a large chip that violates the rules. Reuters reported in July that chiplets have become a core part of China’s technology strategy to advance its chip industry, and analysts have said that Chinese companies could use the technology to evade U.S. restrictions. LICENSING EXPANDED The new measures also expand licensing requirements for exports of advanced chips to more than 40 additional countries that present risks of diversion to China and are subject to U.S. arms embargoes, the officials said. That measure appears to build on a letter received by Nvidia in August that it described as restricting shipments of its A100 and H100 chips beyond China to other regions including some countries in the Middle East. Confirming a Reuters report, chips will be barred from being sent to units of firms located anywhere in the world if their parent companies are headquartered in China, Macau and other arms embargoed countries. The move is part of a bid to keep the chips from being illegally smuggled into China or remotely accessed by Chinese parent companies. The Biden administration also hit 21 countries outside China with a licensing requirement for chipmaking tools and broadened the list of equipment barred from going to that country. Officials took pains to stress that Chinese officials were warned the rules were coming by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, confirming a prior Reuters report." MY COMMENT When our incompetent government does this sort of thing....it never works. But.....I really dont care as a NVDA shareholder. I prefer to trust the commentary coming out of the company rather than media fear mongering. I really doubt there will be any real impact on business at all.
I noticed the FTX trial is continuing....I have not followed it closely, but some of the stuff coming out of testimony is just amazing. What an epic fail.
The real news today......is the total lack of news. There is nothing going on to impact stocks or the upward bias in the markets. This puts EARNINGS clearly in focus....as they should be.
And.....BINGO.....the NASDAQ is now green. Unfortunately the big cap stocks are currently taking a hit from the government actions regarding China. I do believe we should restrict business and tech going to China. BUT.....our incompetent government can never pull this off. Time for me to go out and put up the HALLOWEEN decorations in the yard. As usual we will be doing the box candy like you see in movie theaters. We have about 100 boxes siting in the pantry right now. It is only once a year......so we splurge for the kids. When we bought that hoard of big candy boxes the checker asked us if we owned a movie theater.
You know how the industry and regulators try to give the impression of old world stability with watch dogs, regulations, and auditors to keep everything on the up and up? When this sort of thing goes down and we get to see behind the scenes, it becomes starkly clear it comes down to equity markets being a free for all. I look for management who would conduct themselves ethically, even in the absence of legal boundaries. Meanwhile, I expect W's posting cadence to increase 10 fold as he works his way through a 30 day sugar rush.
So far I have been managing to stay away from that candy. We usually give the left over candy to local law enforcement....it does not last long there. We give it to them to get the temptation out of here.
A negative day for investors that hold what I hold....although.....the SP500 did ok, ending flat for the day. I had only three stocks in the green today.....GOOGL, COST, and HON. My greatest loss today was in NVDA where I have a double position. I also got beat by the SP500 by 1.56% today.......ouch!
This was the day today. S&P 500 closes little changed Tuesday as Treasury yields pop on hot retail sales data https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/16/sto...-towards-busy-earnings-week-live-updates.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "The S&P 500 closed near the flat line on Tuesday as investors analyzed the latest bond yield moves and corporate earnings season gained steam. The broad index slipped 0.01% to end at 4,373.20, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.25% to 13,533.75. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 13.11 points, or 0.04%, to close at 33,997.65. CNBC The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield topped 4.8%, reaching its highest level since Oct. 6 — when it traded at 4.887%. The move followed retail sales data that came in hotter than economists surveyed by Dow Jones had anticipated. Rising yields have pressured the broader market in recent weeks as traders assess the prospects of tighter Federal Reserve policy for longer than expected. Investors have also considered the potential impact from the Israel-Hamas war on the global economy. “It’s more the bond market driving the stock market at this point,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer of the Independent Advisor Alliance. “You’re seeing the trend that we’ve seen for the last two months reassert itself.” To be sure, a solid start to the third-quarter earnings season is helping ease concerns somewhat. Bank of America advanced more than 2% on the back of a better-than-expected report. Bank of New York Mellon climbed nearly 4% after also beating analyst forecasts in the quarter. Beyond earnings, chip stocks including Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices struggled in the session after the U.S. Department of Commerce announced plans to tighten restrictions on sales of advanced artificial intelligence chips to China." MY COMMENT One day nicely up this week.....another......nicely down, for me. At least earnings are coming in very nicely.
HERE.....is my earnings schedule....subject to change. MSFT and GOOGL......October 24. HON and AMZN.....October 26. AAPL.....November 2. HD.......November 14. NVDA........November 21. COST......December 14.
A couple of earnings this morning. P&G Announces Fiscal Year 2024 First Quarter Results (PG) Abbott Reports Third-Quarter 2023 Results and Raises Midpoint of Full-Year EPS Guidance Range (ABT)
A quick hit on the 30 year fixed mortgage rate. (CNBC) The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 8% Wednesday morning, according to Mortgage News Daily. That is the highest level since mid-2000. The milestone came as bond yields soar to levels not seen since 2007. Mortgage rates follow loosely the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury. Rates rose sharply this week and last week, as investors digest more reads on the economy. On Wednesday it was housing starts, which rose in September, though not as much as expected, according to the U.S. Census. Building permits, an indicator of future construction, fell but by a less than expected amount. Last week, retail sales came in far higher than expected, creating more uncertainty over the Federal Reserve’s long-term plan. These higher rates have caused mortgage demand to plummet, as applications fell nearly 7% last week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Here’s another milestone that seemed extreme several short months ago,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily. “The fact is that many borrowers have already seen rates over 8%. That said, many borrowers are still seeing rates in the 7s due to buydowns and discount points.” The homebuilders are using buydowns in order to help customers afford their homes. They do this through their mortgage subsidiaries. While they had used the financing tool very sparingly in the past, it is now the top incentive among builders, according to industry sources. “Although our mortgage company has been offering slightly below market rate loans most of this cycle (just to be competitive), the full point buydown for the 30-year life of the loan we’ve been referring to recently as a builder incentive is not something we had done in previous cycles, at least not on the broad, majority basis we are doing so today. You might have found it on select homes in the past on an extremely limited basis,” said a spokesperson from D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest homebuilder. The average rate on the 30-year fixed was as low as 3% just two years ago. To put it in perspective, a buyer purchasing a $400,000 home with a 20% down payment would have a monthly payment today of nearly $1,000 more than it would have been two years ago.
And this... (CNBC) U.S. Treasury yields rose on Wednesday with the 10-year hitting a fresh multiyear high as investors digested the latest economic data and considered the outlook for Federal Reserve interest rates. The 10-year Treasury yield gained nearly 7 basis points to 4.911%, putting it above 4.9% for the first time since 2007. Meanwhile, the 2-year Treasury yield was trading almost 2 basis points up at 5.231%, around levels last seen in 2006. Also notably, the 5-year Treasury moved as high as 4.937%, its top level since 2007. Yields and prices move in opposite directions and one basis point equals 0.01%.
A couple of sectors have some green currently. Consumer staples and of course...energy. The rest are pretty much in the red. Other news continues to dominate the headlines. The middle east is just a continual powder keg. In our own backyard, it appears one part of our legislative arm....just can't find anyone they like....it is dysfunction junction at this point.
I missed the whole day today. I drove up to Dallas and back....just got home. I missed a nothing day today. Glad I did not waste time on it. I had only a single stock up today....COST. Plus....I got beat by the SP500 by 0.38%. Onward and upward from here.
