It’s all about earnings this week.
And yet, while we’re getting some impressive quarters out of companies, we’re seeing interesting market action.
So let’s see what one Real Money contributor has to say.
How’s the Market Looking?
When it comes to understanding the market from a technical standpoint, there’s one person who I respect and admire. And that’s saying something as a cynical reporter. That person is my colleague, Helene Meisler. And if you don’t follow her writing on Real Money or her Twitter account, you’re doing it wrong.
Anyway, now that I’ve come out as a teacher’s pet, I want to use this chance to discuss her column from early Tuesday morning.
She noted that “breadth on [Monday, July 26] was mediocre at best. But what really caught my eye is that the number of stocks making new highs continues to contract. Recall last week I begged for 200 new highs, on Nasdaq or on the NYSE (preferably both). Monday saw 123 new highs for the NYSE (there were 219 in early July). Nasdaq had 115 new highs (there were 208 in late June). This is a trend that has been trending down. The generals are holding up the market, which is why the rest of the stocks need to get going this week.”
“But it’s also the number of stocks making new lows. They expanded on both the NYSE and Nasdaq on Monday. In fact, the NYSE chimed in at 67 new lows. Last Monday there were 96,” she noted.
I bring up Meisler’s points because this market has left me with more questions than answers, and it’s perplexed a number of people that I’ve spoken to since last week when we saw the selloff on Monday, July 19. Which, if you were watching and reading financial news, was pinned to the coronavirus delta variant.
Obviously, today’s selloff isn’t just diectly linked to the delta variant, so I did want to check in on Twitter to see what people thought about how the coronavirus is impacting the markets–if it is at all.
So, back to Meisler, I’ll be watching for her thoughts on what exactly is taking a place “under the hood.” You can read her over on Real Money.
Elon Musk Takes a Backseat
Tesla (TSLA) – Get Report CEO Elon Musk never has a dull earnings call. And perhaps that will stay that way as he announced on Tesla’s earnings call on Monday that he will be stepping back from taking investor questions after future earnings releases.
I’m not going to lie, as a financial journalist, Musk has taught me a lot simply by being the personality that he is on the calls. When I was just starting out at TheStreet, I was assigned to cover Tesla earnings and live tweet them and, man, that was quite a gig for a rookie reporter. Really taught me to think on my feet and double check the quotes I tweeted out.
“This is the last time I’ll do earnings calls,” Musk said. “Obviously I’ll have to do the annual shareholder meeting, but I think going forward, I will most likely not be on earnings calls unless there’s something really important that I need to say.”
This isn’t necessarily unheard of. Warren Buffett doesn’t do his earnings calls, and neither did former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos when he was at the helm.
But the timing is interesting.
It comes as the competition in the EV space heats up, with GM (GM) – Get Report and Ford (F) – Get Report entering the space and companies like Lucid Motors going public via SPAC.
And there’s also that fact that Musk even warned that the global shortage in semiconductors is “quite serious.”
“The chip supply is fundamentally the governing factor on our output,” Musk told investors, “It is difficult for us to say how long this will last because [it’s] out of our control essentially. It does seem like it’s getting better, but it’s hard to predict.”
Anyway, here’s a quick recap of the earnings: Tesla said non-GAAP earnings for the three months ending in June were pegged at $1.45 per share, up 230% from the same period last year and well ahead of the Street consensus forecast of 98 cents per share. Net income on a non-GAAP basis came in at $1.616 billion, Tesla said, and $1.142 billion on a GAAP basis.
And, Finally, Apple
Apple (AAPL) – Get Report reports earnings after the bell and so do Alphabet (GOOGL) – Get Report and Microsoft (MSFT) – Get Report.
So, I sat down with Apple Maven Daniel Martins to digest the report and other earnings, and to discuss what he wants to hear in the calls.
Just last week, Martins was joined by Wedbush analyst Dan Ives to discuss the stock into earnings and what Ives was looking for.
“Don’t lump Apple in with a pull-forward, work-from-home story. Without the retail piece, I think [the pandemic] actually net-hurt them. This is actually why, when you look at iPhone 13 coming out of the gates in Asia, it’s actually up vs. the iPhone 12 pre-COVID.”
So, let’s take a look at the earnings.
Apple said profits for the three months ending in June, the tech giant’s fiscal third quarter, were pegged at $1.30 per share, up 100% from the same period last year and well ahead of the Street consensus forecast of $1.01 per share. Group revenues, Apple said, rose 36% from last year to $81.4 billion, again topping analysts’ estimates of a $73.3 billion tally.
Apple said iPhone revenues rose 49.8% from last year to $39.57 billion, well ahead of the $35.8 billion Street forecast of around 35.8 billion.
“This quarter, our teams built on a period of unmatched innovation by sharing powerful new products with our users, at a time when using technology to connect people everywhere has never been more important,” said CEO Tim Cook. “We’re continuing to press forward in our work to infuse everything we make with the values that define us — by inspiring a new generation of developers to learn to code, moving closer to our 2030 environment goal, and engaging in the urgent work of building a more equitable future.”
So head on over to TheStreet’s Instagram page to rewatch Martins takes on the quarter.
You can read our Apple Maven’s live takeaways from the quarter over on TheStreet’s live blog.
