AND yes.....BEAT number five.....for the big cap tech companies this week. Apple revenue grows for the first time in a year, but China shows weakness https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/01/apple-aapl-earnings-report-q1-2024.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Key Points Apple reported fiscal first-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat estimates for revenue and earnings, but Apple showed a 13% decline in sales in China, one of its most important markets. Apple reported fiscal first-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat estimates for revenue and earnings, but Apple showed a 13% decline in sales in China, one of its most important markets. Apple shares rose less than 1% in extended trading. Here’s how Apple did, versus LSEG (formerly known as Refinitiv) consensus expectations for the quarter ending Dec. 30: EPS: $2.18 vs. $2.10 estimated Revenue: $119.58 billion vs. $117.91 billion estimated Here’s how Apple’s product lines did versus LSEG expectations: iPhone revenue: $69.70 billion vs. $67.82 billion estimated Mac revenue: $7.78 billion vs. $7.73 billion estimated iPad revenue: $7.02 billion vs. $7.33 billion estimated Other Products revenue: $11.95 billion vs. $11.56 billion estimated Services revenue: $23.12 billion vs. $23.35 billion estimated Gross margin: 45.9% vs. 45.3% estimated Apple did not provide guidance for the current quarter ending in June. Management often provides a few data points during the call with analysts that suggest how the company sees the current quarter shaking out. Apple reported 2% sales growth in the December quarter, breaking a streak of four straight quarters with annual revenue declines. Apple’s gross margin continues to rise, nearly breaking 46% in the December quarter. Apple reported $33.92 billion in net income during the quarter, up 13% from the same period last year. Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach that some of the company’s growth rates actually represent a “huge acceleration” from last quarter, because this year’s December quarter has one fewer week than last year’s first fiscal quarter due to the way Apple’s corporate calendar works. “It’s important to keep in mind that last year, we had 14 weeks in the quarter. This year we had 13,” Cook said. IPhone sales beat Street expectations and grew nearly 6% to $69.70 billion, a positive sign for the iPhone 15 models released in September. This is Apple’s first full quarter with iPhone 15 revenue. Apple’s profitable services business rose 11% during the quarter to $23.11 billion in revenue, but it still came slightly short of estimates. Investors closely watch the growth of Apple’s services business, which includes subscriptions like Apple Music, warranties, search licensing revenue, and payments from Apple Pay and Apple’s advertisements. Apple said it had 2.2 billion active devices in use, a metric that many analysts say informs how they forecast Apple’s services growth. That’s up from 2 billion active devices at the same time last year. Cook attributed services growth to products including advertising, cloud services, payments, and the company’s App Store. He said that Apple claims over 1 billion paid subscriptions, which also includes subscriptions to apps through the App Store. Apple showed sales growth in all regions except for Greater China, which fell nearly 13% from the same time last year, potentially stoking fears of receding demand for Apple in its third largest market. It has faced increased competition from local firms like Huawei.Greater China includes the mainland in addition to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Cook told CNBC’s Kovach that iPhone sales in the region was what “everyone seemed to be focused on.” “If you look at the 13 and then you do a double click to look at Mainland China and look at constant currency, the dollar is very strong versus the RMB,” Cook said. “And so that -13 goes to a mid-single digit number. And so that’s how we did on the phone last quarter. The good news is that we’re four out of the top six top selling smartphones in urban China.” Mac sales grew under 1% during the quarter to $7.7 billion, in line with estimates. It’s a significant recovery for the product line, which fell nearly 34% on an annual basis in the September quarter. IPad sales continue to slump, falling 25% during the quarter to $7.02 billion and slightly short of Street estimates. Apple didn’t release a new iPad model in 2023 for the first time in the product’s history. Cook said that iPad performance “wasn’t a surprise to us.” “The iPad faced a very difficult comp, if you recall, in the year-ago quarter where we launched iPad Pro and iPad 10th generation,” Cook said. The company’s wearables business, sometimes called “other products,” includes AirPods headphones and the Apple Watch. It also had a rough quarter, declining 11% on a year-over-year basis to $11.95 billion in sales, although it topped Street estimates. The newest Apple Watches were removed from Apple stores in December for a few days over a patent dispute with medical device company Masimo. Apple said it spent nearly $27 billion on dividends and share repurchases during the quarter." MY COMMENT A CLEAR Beat in every category except for iPad sales. This makes five for five BEATS on the big cap tech earnings this week. A banner week....even if the BOO BIRDS and media did not want to accept the FACTS on the initial earnings from MSFT and GOOGL.
I am DEFINITELY impressed by and happy with ALL the earnings for my companies this week. We are now all set up for a good two to three months leading up to the next earnings period. As usual.....the experts.....were WRONG again. BUT no shock there....they are virtually ALWAYS wrong.
1.12% gain today so just missed the index's gain. NVDA and AMZN led the charge. BA was my only negative, by .056%. Great day today.
I love it.....a bunch of sniveling rivals.....trying to trash the most successful business person in the world. CEO Survey: Tesla’s Elon Musk Tops Disney’s Bob Iger as Most Overrated Chief Executive https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2024...s-bob-iger-as-most-overrated-chief-executive/ So on one hand we have Musk.....who started and established TESLA. Is the heart and soul and basically the space program for our country....with another company he started and runs.....SpaceX. Is the future of the internet and all media with StarLink....another start-up success story. Is somehow able to run "X"....formerly Twitter.....with about 15% of the prior employees. He is also the founder of The Boring Company and NeuraLink. Of course he is also a leading figure in AI and robotics. What MUSK is doing with FOUNDING and MANAGING at least 5-7 companies is AMAZING. These IDIOTS on the other hand struggle to run a single company....mostly founded and made successful by someone else.
What a month it has been…. A whole rollercoaster of NOTHING. One day we’re up huge. Next day it’s back to crap.. same thing over and over. I’m up about 1.50% ytd And geeeeez, look at meta come back strong and totally SLAY announcing a dividend. Even I didn’t see that coming when I added 10k to my position in 22 at around 115/share… I thought that the most I’ll ever see it go to is 150 back then. As to tsla…. Geez, no one really gets it I guess…. Tsla is the apple of automobiles. It has the same appeal, the same cult following, same marketing, the same fearless leadership and above all that it has a strong foundation and sister companies with lots of promise. So like anything else in stocks- if you’re looking for a safe stock to generate 5-10% annually with some turmoil - this ain’t it. But if you’re willing to hold on LONG TERM this baby will triple and quadruple after it’s done bleeding all the drama it is experiencing now. So…. Not for the faint hearted Tomorrow looks to be like a killer day for Amazon and meta… let’s see if it pulls the rest of the market with it!
… Aaaand agree with everything that was said about W and his dedicated stock guarding and intuitive ways. If only he’d been good looking there’s no telling where he would end up!
LOL.....I ended up just fine....thank you very much. YES.....I was thinking of you Zukodany when I saw those META earnings and the price jump after hours.
A good update on those top tech earnings....they looked good to me as well. Funny how the pundits/media are never really satisfied and look for any route to be negative. Most investors that hold these companies long term know more about their particular holdings than any of the fortune tellers anyway. I can't remember ever buying/selling a company based on anything they have ever said. It was always a personal decision after research, thinking, observing, and matching up with my goals and plans.
Speaking of earnings......I kind of think doing them quarterly is overkill. It just adds to the drama. One good quarterly report does not make a company great, nor does one bad one make them a dumpster fire either. There was a time when there was a push to change the reporting. However, "they" feared investors would not be as informed, taken advantage of, and by the time "bad" reports came out the investors could not make informed decisions. I always evaluated them over much longer periods and still would do so. To me, there is a reason it is still done this way and it is not for any of those reasons above.
The little economic news of the day....which no one will care about anyway. January jobs report: US economy adds 353,000 jobs, blowing past Wall Street expectations https://finance.yahoo.com/news/janu...-past-wall-street-expectations-133251408.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "The labor market started 2024 on a high note. The US economy created 353,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in January, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday, more than the 185,000 expected by economists. January's job gains were also higher than December's revised figures, which showed there were 333,000 jobs created last month. Initial data out last month showed there were 216,0000 additions to the workforce in the final month of 2023. Combined, revisions for November and December added a total of 126,000 additional jobs compared to initial reports. The unemployment rate also held steady in January at 3.7% for the third straight month. The surprise strength in the labor market helped consumer wallets too. Wages, a closely watched indicator of inflation and a gauge of how much leverage workers have in the labor market, increased 0.6% on a monthly basis and 4.5% over last year; economists had expected wages to rise 0.3% over last month and 4.1% over last year. Some key metrics did decline, though. The labor force participation rate ticked lower to 62.5%, down from 62.6% the month prior, while average weekly hours worked moved down slightly from 34.3 to 34.1. The largest jobs increases in Friday's report were seen in professional and business services, which added 74,000 jobs in February, well above its 2023 monthly average of 14,000 jobs. Meanwhile, healthcare added 70,000 jobs, and retail trade gained 45,000 jobs. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell described the labor market as "at or nearing normal but not totally back to normal." "It’s still a good labor market for wages and for finding a job," Powell added. "But it’s getting back into balance. And that’s what we want to see." Recent data has reflected Powell's observation of a normalizing labor market. ADP's monthly private payroll data released Wednesday showed the difference between annual wage growth for workers changing jobs and workers staying in jobs has narrowed to pre-pandemic levels. "You're seeing solid pay growth, not supercharged pay growth like we saw before," ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said on a call with reporters after the release on Wednesday. The labor market has come into focus in the first month of the year as headlines of layoffs from many corporations have piled in. Broadly, economists haven't seen this trend appear in the data yet and didn't expect it to play a prominent role in Friday's report. Notably, Chair Powell reiterated that the Fed doesn't believe it still needs to see significant softening in the labor market in order to start cutting rates. "At this point we want to see strong growth," Powell said. "We want to see a strong labor market. We’re not looking for a weaker labor market. We’re looking for inflation to continue to come down, as it has been coming down for the last six months."" MY COMMENT What? No mention of the impending....recession? YES.....there will be no recession. Although if they can string the recession talk along for long enough sooner or later they will get to say I told you so....since recessions are part of the normal economic process. The trouble with the economists that make these calls.....they are out of touch with the REAL WORLD. I have been saying for at least a year now that there is no indication of a recession. Is this based on my economic calculations and my astute parsing of all the data.......NOPE. It is based on my simple observations of what is going on around me in the real world. These "experts" would be a lot better in predicting....if they would simply pay attention to and participate in.....the real world.
The futures were on fire at one point last night. Now they are mildly positive. Looks like a typical open today.....obscure.
Poor GOOGLE.....they have joined APPLE today in the dog house. Apple stock sinks despite earnings beat, as China sales slow https://finance.yahoo.com/news/appl...nings-beat-as-china-sales-slow-144509608.html MY COMMENT China, China, China.....it is amazing that one of the greatest and largest companies in the world and here in the USA.....is now a captive of the worlds most brutal communist dictatorship. Of course they reported a nice earnings BEAT......in spite of China. BUT.....our financial media is OBSESSED with China. As to GOOGLE......the short term micro-second trading and nit-picking continue. Personally I see China as an economic and business....dead end. Primarily due to their status as a terrorist dictatorship
BUT.....as usual....it is all about the portfolio as a whole. So I have a good gain so far today. No I did not look yet....I can see it without looking. On another topic....there is currently......SIX TRILLION....dollars siting in Money Market Funds. Imagine just a fraction of that money coming into the stock-markets. No doubt at some time in the future.....the BULL MARKET.....will pull some of that money into the markets. It is a very good indicator of the staying power of the bull market....that money is not flooding into stocks yet. Long term investors are cleaning up right now....but general mania has not struck yet.. Sooner or later it will.
I have made a big jump up today to a new all time high. Much of the reason is my largest holding,....NVIDIA. In my primary account it is a double position at over 20% of the total account. I will let it run as it wishes.....I will not be re-balancing any time soon. I learned a long time ago to ride the winners for as long as possible. Oh yes...speaking of winners....the DOW is now positive for the day.....slightly. BUT...better slightly than not at all.
I agree NVDA is giving our accounts a HUGE boost. We won't get NVDA Earnings Report until Feb 20th. So far I'm up over 21% YTD. Lets see if we can pull off a back to back year!
