Costco Powers Past Wall Street Expectations, Boasts Double-Digit E-Commerce Gains

/ / Consumer Discretionary /

Costco Wholesale Corp (NASDAQ:COST) reaffirmed its retail dominance, reporting an impressive 9.8% growth in December U.S. core sales. This result exceeded Wall Street’s 5.2% estimate and topped JPMorgan’s optimistic 6.7% forecast. JPMorgan analyst Christopher Horvers credited Costco’s results to “market share gains, a shorter season, and a bit better consumer” working in tandem. E-commerce surged 35.7% year-over-year, partly thanks to Black Friday sales booked in December due to a holiday calendar shift. Meanwhile, international operations weren’t far behind, with core comps climbing 10.3% in Canada and 9.8% across other regions. “No other major retailer has succeeded in every country it entered,” Horvers noted, underscoring Costco’s unmatched global consistency. Read Also: Here’s How Much $1000 Invested In Costco Wholesale 10 Years Ago Would Be Worth Today High-Income Costco Customers While the shorter holiday season helped December’s numbers, JPMorgan’s Horvers pointed to a broader trend: improving consumer spending among higher-income shoppers. “We believe […]

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How Facebook Helps EBay in a Billion Ways

/ / Technology /

Emily Dattilo The recent team-up with Meta Platforms could mean growth for eBay, Citi analysts argued. On Wednesday, eBay announced some of its listings can now be found on Meta’s Facebook Marketplace, and the stock soared 9.9% on the news. “While eBay listings will be shown on Facebook Marketplace, the entire process (from product inquiries to transaction and payment) will be handled by eBay,” analysts led by Ygal Arounian wrote in a Wednesday note. “We expect the channel expansion into Facebook Marketplace should significantly expand the audience and reach for eBay sellers’ listings.” They rate eBay stock at Buy with a price target of $75. It’s difficult to pinpoint a gross-merchandise-value estimate for Facebook Marketplace since the majority of its transactions are done off the platform, the analysts noted. But the platform has over 1 billion monthly visitors, while eBay had only 133 million active buyers as of the third

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UnitedHealth Shareholders Call for Report to Evaluate Risks of Healthcare Denials

/ / Health Care /

UnitedHealth Group (UNH) shareholders have proposed that the health insurance company report on “public health-related costs and macroeconomic risks” caused by practices that “limit or delay access to healthcare.” The shareholder proposal said the report should evaluate how the company’s practices “impact access to healthcare and patient outcomes.” It said the report should include how often authorization requirements or denials of coverage have led to a delay or abandonment of medical treatment, as well as serious adverse events for patients as a result. “UNH has been in the media and legislative spotlight for some time given its market dominance, aggressive marketing of Medicare Advantage and questionable use of AI algorithms to deny care to patients,” said Timnit Ghermay of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. “Our proposal suggests some introspection by UNH that will help the company and all its stakeholders thrive.”

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Microsoft Plans Layoffs

/ / Technology /

Microsoft (MSFT) plans to reduce less than 1% of its 228,000 employees in the next few months, The Information reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The layoffs will reportedly be based on employee performance and span multiple divisions. Microsoft said in a statement to MT Newswires it is “planning terminations related to performance across the company, and that when people leave for performance reasons, the company typically backfills the roles.” A Microsoft spokesman added, “At Microsoft we focus on high performance talent. We are always working on helping people learn and grow. When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action.”

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AMD Stock Falls After Downgrade. Why It’s Trailing in the AI Chips Race.

/ / Technology /

By Brian Swint Advanced Micro Devices, stock was falling in premarket trading Wednesday after it caught a downgrade. The semiconductor maker that competes with Nvidia and Intel, is not keeping up in the race to produce chips for artificial intelligence. Strategists at HSBC led by Frank Lee lowered their price target on the shares to $110 from $200 and cut the rating to Reduce from Buy. After noting the stock’s decline in the past three months, Lee said it could drop further. The company’s road map for producing AI graphics processors “is less competitive than we previously thought,” the analysts said in a note Wednesday. While Nvidia is still clearly the leader among AI chip makers, AMD, Broadcom, and Marvell Technology are also competing for market share as Big Tech firms such as Google-parent Alphabet and Facebook-owner Meta Platforms ramp up investment. AMD stock slid 2.3% to $124.54 in premarket

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Exxon Mobil Signals Lower Q4 Earnings. Here’s What Analysts Are Saying.

/ / Energy /

Exxon Mobil profits will likely miss fourth-quarter-earnings estimates by close to 20%, one analyst argued as he trimmed his numbers. While Exxon Mobil expects changes in gas prices to improve earnings by up to $400 million, the global energy company anticipates losses in other segments, according to a regulatory form the company filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Mizuho analyst Nitin Kumar noted that a weakness in upstream liquids pricing, energy products margins, and chemicals margins “appear to be weighing on results.” Exxon expects lower liquids prices to reduce upstream earnings by $500 million to $900 million from the third quarter. Exxon reported net income of $8.6 billion in the third quarter, with $6.2 billion attributed to upstream activity. The midpoint of Exxon’s implied fourth-quarter earnings-per-share range of $1.03 to $1.88 is 18% below Mizuho’s prior estimate of $1.79, and 17% below Wall Street’s consensus of $1.76, Kumar

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EBay Stock Is Top S&P 500 Performer. What Meta Platforms Has to Do With That.

/ / Technology /

Shares of eBay were trading sharply higher after the online marketplace said some of its listings can now be found on Meta Platforms’ Facebook Marketplace. “This week kicks off our collaboration, with a pilot of select eBay listings appearing on Facebook Marketplace in the US, Germany, and France,” eBay said in a statement Wednesday. The announcement arrived after Meta last year was fined EUR797.72 million by the European Commission for breaching EU antitrust rules by tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook and “by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers.” EBay stock gained 11% to $70.32 in trading Wednesday, and was on track for its largest daily percentage increase since Feb. 1, 2018, according to Dow Jones Market Data. It also the best performer Wednesday in the S&P 500. Meta shares fell 0.7% to $613.54.

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Elon Musk Was Right About Self-Driving Cars. Just Ask Jensen Huang.

/ / Consumer Discretionary /

The autonomous- vehicle “revolution has arrived” and the “robotics era is just around the corner,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said this week. He sounded a lot like Elon Musk — a vindication for the Tesla CEO. In his keynote address at the CES trade show in Las Vegas on Monday night, Huang outlined a number of amazing — and sometimes hard to understand — advancements in artificial intelligence. He spent a lot of time talking about self-driving cars and robots — two killer applications made possible by AI. Three things are bringing self-driving cars to the masses, the Nvidia chief said: AI models capable of driving the cars, AI training simulations that use real and created scenarios to train the models, and powerful AI computers inside vehicles capable of running the ever-improving driving models. That is the same way Musk has been explaining Tesla’s self-driving push for years. Sometimes, investors

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Nvidia’s Stock Falls Further – but Analysts See a Future That’s Brighter Than Ever

/ / Technology /

Nvidia’s talk of huge market opportunities in autonomous driving and robotics is ‘potentially comforting for investors thinking about what might come next for the company’ Nvidia Corp. shares have turned lower Wednesday, adding to sharp losses from a day earlier, even as analysts urged investors to think big picture. While Chief Executive Jensen Huang’s Monday night keynote didn’t impress Wall Street, executives got another crack at things with a Tuesday afternoon analyst meeting, which touched on everything from attempts to get more on the specifics of January-quarter guidance to management’s perceived opportunity in areas like robotics and autonomous driving. Nvidia’s stock (NVDA) is down about 1% in Wednesday’s session after it had been up as much as 2.7% earlier in the trading day. It lost 6.2% on Tuesday. See also: Quantum-computing stocks sink as Nvidia CEO delivers a reality check Analysts saw some upbeat signs, particularly when taking a wide

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Netflix Q4 To Show Advertising, Live Sports Strength, Analyst Says: ‘Multiyear Narrative Of Compounded Growth’

/ / Consumer Discretionary /

Live sports, ad-supported plans and pricing strategies are among the items highlighted by a Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) analyst ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report, which will include results from NFL games, a big boxing match and the premiere of a second season of “Squid Game.” The Netflix Analyst: Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan reiterated a Neutral rating on Netflix and raised the price target from $750 to $850. The Analyst Takeaways: Netflix outperforming the S&P 500 over the past 12 months comes with several key themes, Sheridan said in a new investor note. The analyst highlighted a competitive moat, a push into live sports and partnerships in advertising as key themes. “Initial forays into live sports/entertainment are the beginning of a multi-year narrative of compounded growth that will build in momentum,” Sheridan said. Sheridan said the key investor debates going forward are the pace of price increases, management commentary on live sports and the overall

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Goldman Sachs Flags Weak Q4 Guidance For Exxon Amid Weak Upstream And Chemical Results

/ / Energy /

Goldman Sachs analyst Neil Mehta expressed views on Exxon Mobil Corporation’s (NYSE:XOM) trading update reported yesterday. The oil giant anticipates changes in oil prices to reduce fourth-quarter upstream earnings Q/Q by $(0.9) billion to $(0.5) billion. Conversely, changes in gas prices are expected to impact its upstream results by between $0.0 billion and $0.4 billion. On the other hand, Exxon Mobil projects that variations in industry margins will impact energy products earnings by $(0.7) billion – $(0.3) billion, specialty products earnings by $(0.1) billion – $0.1 billion, and chemical products earnings by $(0.5) billion – $(0.3) billion. The analyst writes that implied EPS at the midpoint was ~$1.50, below their estimate of $1.80 and FactSet consensus of $1.76. The difference is mainly due to weaker-than-expected results in the Upstream, Downstream, and Chemicals segments, adds the analyst. Mehta writes that implied Upstream earnings were ~$5.7 billion at the mid-point, below their estimate of

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AI PCs and Chips Are a Highlight at CES. Demand Concerns Remain.

/ / Technology /

Artificial intelligence personal computers have made a splash at the CES conference this week, but concerns regarding demand haven’t gone away. Investors and consumers have been tuned into the annual CES trade show this week as tech companies from around the world visit Las Vegas to unveil their newest product and software updates. One highlight from the week has been the display of new gen-AI PCs and chips. Nvidia unveiled Project Digits, a $3,000 AI personal supercomputer. Dell Technologies announced that it has redesigned its entire PC portfolio to make it more simple for the consumer as it develops new AI hardware. Meanwhile, Qualcomm and Advanced Micro Devices both showed off new AI PC processors. But while all of these new announcements are being made, there is still the question as to what the PC market will look like in the year to come. On one end, there’s excitement about

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