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Stock Market Today: Wall Street Rallies Around Reassuring Retail Data

The stock market enjoyed a broad rebound Tuesday as fresh economic data suggested the U.S. consumer is still shopping strong.

The U.S. Census Bureau said today that April retail sales improved by 0.9% over March. Though that was slightly less than the 1.0% expected, there was a show of strength in the significant upward revision to March’s numbers, to 1.4% growth from 0.5% originally.

“To the extent that markets are worried about a growth slowdown, this is good news, but it is also a further catalyst for the Fed to raise rates even higher to get inflation under control,” says Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for registered investment advisor Independent Advisor Alliance.

While Zaccarelli joins other names in believing a recession is unlikely in 2022, “the Fed is going to need to raise interest rates to a point where they are likely to cause a recession in 2023 or 2024, and that gives us cause for concern,” he says.

Despite the promising retail data, success in retail stocks wasn’t a gimme.

Walmart (WMT, -11.4%) plunged after delivering a mixed quarterly report. Revenues improved 2.4% year-over-year to $141.6 billion to easily top expectations, and Walmart lifted its full-year sales outlook. However, that windfall is coming from cost-conscious consumers flocking to its grocery aisle, which has lower margins than its other offerings. This, as well as supply-chain problems and other headwinds, caused Walmart to report profits of $1.30 per share that were well short of estimates, and to lower its income forecast for 2022.

Home Depot (HD, +1.7%) fared better, however, after delivering record fiscal first-quarter sales and upgrading its full-year outlook. 

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“Walmart’s report this week basically confirmed all the negative scenarios that you would expect given inflationary pressures and rising interest rates,” says David Keller, chief market strategist at StockCharts.com. But he added that “Home Depot’s report had a much more encouraging tone as consumers fueled a strong earnings win for the company.”

Other pockets of strength Tuesday included airline stocks such as American Airlines (AAL, +7.7%) and Delta Air Lines (DAL, +6.7%), which were boosted by United Airlines’ (UAL, +7.9%) higher second-quarter revenue outlook. Semiconductor stocks including Micron Technology (MU, +5.7%) and Qualcomm (QCOM, +4.3%) also rallied around Piper Sandler’s upgrade of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, +8.7%).

The Nasdaq Composite was tops among the major indexes Tuesday, up 2.8% to 11,984. The S&P 500 delivered a 2.0% gain to 4,088, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average improved 1.3% to 32,654.

stock chart for 051722stock chart for 051722

Other news in the stock market today:

  • The small-cap Russell 2000 surged 3.2% to 1,840.
  • U.S. crude oil futures slumped 1.6% to $112.40 per barrel.
  • A retreat in the U.S. dollar helped gold futures tick 0.3% higher to $1,818.90 per ounce.
  • Bitcoin improved by 1.7% to $30,058.48. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.)
  • Twitter (TWTR, +2.5%) made some gains despite a potential deal with Tesla (TSLA, +5.1%) CEO Elon Musk looking increasingly unlikely. Musk insisted today that he would back out of his $44 billion bid to buy the social platform unless Twitter proved that fewer than 5% of its users are bots. He tweeted that “20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher” without providing proof. Numerous analysts have now said they believe Musk’s sudden interest in Twitter’s bot numbers is either an attempt to escape his deal, or lower the $54.20-per-share price tag.

Buffett’s Latest Buys Are In!

A number of other stocks were driven higher Tuesday by their newfound inclusion into a prestigious order: the equity portfolio of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Berkshire filed its quarterly Form 13F with the SEC yesterday afternoon, revealing that after more than a year of heavy selling, Warren Buffett was finally eager to buy. Paramount Global (PARA, +15.4%) and Celanese (CE, +7.5%) were just two of the eight new positions Berkshire entered during the first quarter, and among the top beneficiaries of earning Buffett’s seal of approval.

We recently mentioned that inflation has been a major driver of many of Buffett’s purchases of the past few months, but it’s not the only story.

Read on as we explore each and every one of Buffett’s 22 moves from the first quarter of 2022, including what likely drew the Oracle of Omaha (or his lieutenants) to the position.

Kyle Woodley was long AMD as of this writing.

Source: kiplinger.com

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5 Expert Tips for Protecting Yourself from the Next Crypto Crash

If you’re investing in cryptocurrency, it needs to be part of a balanced portfolio that meets your goals. For most people, this means allocating no more than 5% of your portfolio to a risky investment like crypto.
Possibly the most important thing for investors to remember is don’t panic. Cryptocurrency is a highly volatile investment and these types of price swings are to be expected.
— Cody Lachner, certified financial planner and director of financial planning at BBK Wealth Management
Most investors are seeing a broad pull back in all their investments right now, including stocks. There’s not much investors can do in such situations except to keep their portfolios balanced and diversified.
The machine worked great — until it didn’t.
The collapse of terra and luna erased some billion in market capitalization in a week. Experts say that money is unlikely to return. The fallout sent ripples across the entire crypto ecosystem, causing bitcoin and ethereum to hit lows not seen since December 2020.
The crash in crypto has reminded us why a long-term investment strategy is so important. The crypto community has even come up with the phrase HODL which means “hold on for dear life.”
Source: thepennyhoarder.com
In the months and weeks ahead, cryptocurrencies will face the same challenge as other major asset classes — rising interest rates — which tend to negatively impact the value of risky investments.
Sometimes people only look at the upside when investing. They think “Wow, I could have made a lot of money if only I had invested in this or that.”
— Chris Brooks, co-founder of Crypto Asset Recovery
But why did investors sink so much money into these tokens?
By May 12, the stablecoin once pegged at was trading for less than a penny.
When investing for the long-term, you understand that corrections are part of a normal market. That makes it easier to ride out the lows and wait for the eventual recovery.
Terra’s value is meant to stay at . But it wasn’t backed by real-world assets. Instead, the two tokens were tied in value to one another like a seesaw. One token would be automatically created or destroyed based on the supply and demand of the other.

How To Protect Your Portfolio From Another Crypto Crash: 5 Experts Weigh In

A portrait of Robert Persichitte
Photo courtesy of Robert Persichitte

1. Don’t Go All in

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Eventually, trust will re-enter the market and you’ll get another shot.
— Lance Elrod, a certified financial planner with Next Step Financial Transitions

This is a portrait of Erik Goodge who is wearing an eye patch while sitting in a green office chair.
Photo courtesy of Erik Goodge

2. Read the Fine Print

— Robert Persichitte, a tax accountant and certified financial planner at Delagify Financial
Rachel Christian is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance and a senior writer for The Penny Hoarder.
New York Magazine described the system “as a perpetual wealth-creation machine, a way to always make money through the magic of code and financial engineering.”
Terra’s algorithm eventually broke — there’s still some confusion and debate over why — and its value started nosediving May 8. As investors sold off UST, the supply of luna ballooned, causing its price to plummet. From there, UST and luna locked arms in a death spiral race to the bottom.

3. Be Safe, Be Secure

By May 16, bitcoin traded at around ,000 — more than a 50% decline in value from its all-time high of roughly ,000 five months ago.

This is a portrait of Chris Brooks.
Photo courtesy of Chris Brooks

Cryptocurrency investors are reeling and wondering what comes next after a massive market shakeup sent the price of bitcoin plummeting to its lowest level in 17 months last week.
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A portrait of Lance Elrod.
Photo courtesy of Lance Elrod

4. Play the Long Game

One positive that can occur during a correction like this is a tax-loss harvesting opportunity: You can sell certain assets to capture losses and offset capital gains tax you may owe next year.
Many cryptocurrency investors are now wondering what comes next and how to safeguard their portfolios. After all, it’s not just cryptocurrency that’s suffering — the entire U.S. economy is sluggish. Inflation is high, interest rates are rising, stocks are down (the S&P 500 has lost 16% of its value so far in 2022) and many experts are forecasting a recession in the next six to 12 months.
But few terra/luna investors paused to realize they were stacking risk on top of risk on top of more risk.

A portrait of Cody Lachner, certified financial planner and director of financial planning at BBK Wealth Management.
Photo courtesy of Cody Lachner

5. Buy and Hold (on for Dear Life)

— Erik Goodge, a certified financial planner and president of uVest Advisory Group
No one has perfect foresight. That’s why it’s so important to diversify with other assets.
Employ best practices in diversity, securing your private keys and don’t over-leverage yourself. Know that while this is a setback, it’s a temporary one.
We sat down with five experts who offered insight into navigating these uncertain times — and the best ways to protect your portfolio from a future crypto crash.

The phrase reminds us that investing in crypto is anything but a smooth ride. <!–

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A scheme known as the Anchor protocol promised crypto investors annual returns of nearly 20% in exchange for lending out their terra holdings. With cryptocurrency markets relatively stagnant since December, the lure of 20% returns seemed too good to pass up.

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Stock Market Today: Stocks Finish Lower as Traders Mull Recession Odds

The potential for the U.S. to slip into recession was the topic du jour Monday as stocks kicked off the week with a wobbly, uneven session.

Over the weekend, former Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein told CBS’ Face the Nation that recession was “a very, very high risk factor.” That opinion was met by a number of other calls Monday morning.

Wells Fargo Investment Institute, for instance, says “our conviction is that the chances of an outright recession in 2022 remain low” but believes odds are growing that 2023 could see an economic contraction. UBS strategists say the chances are different depending on where you look – their global economists say “hard data” points to a sub-1% chance of recession over the next 12 months, but the yield curve implies 32% odds.

“There’s no crystal ball to predict what’s next, but historical trends can come into play here. With the [S&P 500] closing 15% below its weekly record, there’s only been two times in the past 60-plus years that the market didn’t fall into bear territory after a similar drop,” adds Chris Larkin, Managing Director of Trading at E*Trade. “This doesn’t mean it’s bound to happen, but there is room for potential downside.”

Larkin says to keep an eye on major retail earnings this week – which will kick off in earnest with Walmart’s Tuesday report – to get a pulse check on the American consumer.

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Monday itself was a fairly quiet affair. Exxon Mobil (XOM, +2.4%) and Chevron (CVX, +3.1%) were among a number of plays from the energy sector (+2.7%) that popped after U.S. crude oil futures jumped another 3.4% to $114.20 per barrel.

Twitter (TWTR, -8.2%) shares dropped after Tesla (TSLA, -5.9%) CEO Elon Musk spent the weekend questioning how much of Twitter’s traffic comes from bots. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said the move feels more like a “‘dog ate the homework’ excuse to bail on the Twitter deal or talk down a lower price.” TWTR stock has now given up all its gains since Musk announced his stake in the social platform.

The major indexes finished an up-and-down session with mostly weak results. The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to eke out a marginal gain to 32,223, but the S&P 500 declined 0.4% to 4,008, while the Nasdaq Composite retreated 1.2% to 11,662.

Also worth noting: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway will file its quarterly Form 13F soon. Check back here tonight as we examine what Buffett has been buying and selling. 

stock chart for 051622stock chart for 051622

Other news in the stock market today:

  • The small-cap Russell 2000 closed out the session with a 0.5% dip to 1,783.
  • Gold futures gained 0.3% to settle at $1,814 an ounce.
  • Bitcoin was off 1.6% to $29,551.92 (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.)
  • JetBlue Airways (JBLU, -6.1%) ramped up its hostile takeover attempt of Spirit Airlines (SAVE, +13.5%) on Monday, urging SAVE shareholders to vote against a buyout offer from fellow low-cost air carrier Frontier Group Holdings (ULCC, +5.9%). JBLU last month offered to buy Spirit Airlines for $33 per share – a premium to the $21.50 per share ULCC offered in February – but SAVE’s board of directors rejected the bid citing concerns over regulatory approval. JBLU followed up in early May with an “enhanced superior proposal,” including paying a $200 million, or $1.80 per SAVE share, reverse break-up fee should regulators block the deal.
  • Warby Parker (WRBY) fell 5.3% after the eyeglass maker reported a loss of 30 cents per share in its first quarter. This was much wider than the per-share loss of 3 cents the company reported in the year-ago period and missed the consensus estimate for breakeven on a per-share basis. Revenue of $153.2 million also fell short of analysts’ expectations. WRBY did maintain its full-year revenue guidance of $650 million to $660 million. “We remain cautiously optimistic on shares as WRBY continues to show ability to grow the top line, open new stores, and is recession resistant as a lower cost option for non-discretionary spend,” says CFRA Research analyst Zachary Warring (Buy). “We see the company leveraging SG&A to become profitable in the second half of 2022.”

Check Out Europe’s Dividend Royalty

If you’re seeking out more stable opportunities amid an uncertain U.S. market … well, the rest of the world is admittedly looking pretty shaky, too. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few morsels worth a nibble. 

BCA Research notes that while there’s negative news around the globe, “European benchmarks already discount a significant portion of the negative news.” And looking ahead, inflation there is expected to peak over the summer “as the commodity impulse is decelerating” – that should help stagflation fears recede and help European shares.

Graham Secker, Morgan Stanley’s chief European and U.K. equity strategist, chimes in that his firm remains “overweight [European] stocks offering a high and secure dividend yield.”

We’ve previously highlighted our favorite European dividend stocks, which on the whole tend to produce higher yields than their U.S. counterparts.

But we’d also like to shine the spotlight on Europe’s twist on an American income club: the Dividend Aristocrats. The S&P Europe 350 Dividend Aristocrats have somewhat different qualifications than their U.S. brethren, but in general, they’ve proven their ability to provide stable and growing dividends over time.

Read on as we look at the European Dividend Aristocrats.

Source: kiplinger.com

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Stock Market Today: Stocks Paper Over Lousy Week With Wild Friday

Wall Street spent most of Friday applying some vibrant lipstick to what was otherwise a pig of a week for investors.

A broad market rally – one that saw each of the S&P 500’s 11 sectors finish higher – wasn’t a response to any new positive catalysts. Quarterly reports were light today, with most investors flipping the earnings calendar to next week’s retail-heavy slate.

And Friday’s most noteworthy datapoint was the University of Michigan’s latest consumer sentiment index reading, which dropped from 65.2 in April to 59.1 in May – a 10-year nadir that was well lower than the 64.1 reading expected.

Sometimes the market just enjoys a relief rally.

“Following a week of heavy selling, but with inflationary pressures easing just at the margin, and the Fed still seemingly wedded to 50-basis-point hikes for each of the next two FOMC meetings, the market was poised for the kind of strong rally endemic to bear market rallies,” says Quincy Krosby, chief equity strategist for LPL Financial.

He adds that given the Federal Reserve is only at the beginning of its rate-hike cycle and would like to see demand pull back further, “this rally will most likely weaken.”

Of course, even if this is just a pause before more market declines, investors don’t necessarily have to time the bottom to buy in at a decent valuation.

“This is still an attractive entry point, as we do not believe this is 1999/2000,” says Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of asset management firm Laffer Tengler Investments.

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The buying was strongest in consumer discretionary stocks (+3.9%) such as Amazon.com (AMZN, +5.7%) and Tesla (TSLA, +5.7%), along with technology plays (+3.3%) including Nvidia (NVDA, +9.5%) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, +9.3%).

Energy (+3.4%) was also bid higher amid a big pop in oil; U.S. crude futures finished 4.1% higher to $110.49 per barrel, helping to spark new highs in gasoline futures prices.

Notably absent from the rally was Twitter (TWTR, -9.7%), which sank after Elon Musk tweeted that the deal was “temporarily on hold.” 

All the major indexes put up spectacular gains Friday, though for the week, it was still losses all around: The Nasdaq Composite (+3.8% to 11,805) still finished off 2.8% for the week, the S&P 500 (+2.4% to 4,023) was down 2.4% across the five days, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+1.5% to 32,196) closed the week 2.1% in the red.

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Other news in the stock market today:

  • The small-cap Russell 2000 bounced 3.1% to 1,792.
  • Gold futures had no such luck. The yellow metal was off 0.9% to a 14-week low of $1,808.20 per ounce.
  • Bitcoin snapped back 5.1% to $30,034.99. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.)

Keep Your Guard Up Against Inflation

Inflation is prevalent virtually everywhere – including on corporate America’s earnings calls.

We’re most of the way through the first-quarter earnings season, and over the past few months, publicly traded companies keep repeating the “I” word as they discussed their most recent financial results.

FactSet used its Document Search technology to track mentions of the term “inflation” on corporate earnings calls, According to their senior earnings analyst, John Butters, of the 455 S&P 500 companies that have conducted earnings conference calls from March 15 through May 12, “377 have cited the term ‘inflation’ … which is well above the five-year average of 155.”

In fact, this is the highest overall number of S&P 500 companies citing inflation on their calls going back to at least 210. (The previous record? 356 … in the final quarter of 2021.)

It’s another signal that inflation continues to be a persistent problem – and with forecasts calling for still-high inflation to come, more active investors might do well to pack a little more protection. We’ve previously analyzed other ways to stay in front of inflation, such as stocks with pricing power and inflation-fighting funds.

Today, we look at another batch of investments that can help harness high inflation, with a focus on commodities, real estate and other areas of the market.

Kyle Woodley was long AMD, AMZN and NVDA as of this writing.

Source: kiplinger.com

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Stock Market Today: Stocks Stumble as Inflation Remains Red-Hot

It was a choppy day for stocks as investors unpacked the latest consumer price index (CPI). Data released by the Labor Department this morning showed that prices consumers paid for goods and services in April rose at an annual rate of 8.3% – down from March’s 8.5% pace to mark the first drop in inflation in eight months. While encouraging at first glimpse, there were concerning signs deeper inside the report.

For instance, the decline in CPI last month reflected a drop in gas prices, which have since rebounded. Food prices remained elevated, while airfare and restaurant bills increased ahead of the key summer travel season. And core CPI, which excludes the volatile energy and food categories, rose 0.6% on a sequential basis – double what it was in March.

“While this report appears to mark the first that shows some moderation from the ever-rising pace of inflation since September of last year, one data point does not necessarily make a trend; and the rise in core CPI should lead to some consideration that the moderation in inflation will not be quick,” says Jason Pride, chief investment officer of private wealth at wealth management firm Glenmede. 

With prices already high, Pride said, it should be harder for the CPI to continue to rise at the same pace, especially with the Federal Reserve also hiking interest rates to combat higher prices. “However, it will likely take multiple reports for such a trend [of moderating inflation] to clearly establish itself,” he says.

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This sentiment is echoed by Mike Loewengart, managing director of Investment Strategy at E*Trade. “Today’s read is a stark reminder that the journey to pre-pandemic levels of inflation will be a long one,” Loewengart says. “Although inflation slowed from March, the market’s reaction suggests that record high prices continue to weigh heavy on investors psyches. And with inflation persistently hot, the Fed has more fodder for increased rate hikes, which the market doesn’t often welcome with open arms.”

After bouncing between gains and losses in early trading, markets took a decisive turn lower this afternoon. At the close, the Nasdaq Composite was down 3.2% at 11,364, the S&P 500 Index was off 1.7% at 3,935 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 1.0% lower at 31,834. 

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Other news in the stock market today:

  • The small-cap Russell 2000 retreated 2.5% to 1,718.
  • U.S. crude futures surged 6% to end at $105.71 per barrel.
  • Gold futures gained 0.7% to settle at $1,853.70 an ounce.
  • Bitcoin slid below the $30,000 for the first time since July 2021, down 5.9% at $29,477.50. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.)
  • Roblox (RBLX) was down as much as 10% in after-hours trading Tuesday after the video game developer reported a first-quarter loss of 27 cents per share, wider than the 21 cents per share Wall Street was expecting. The company’s revenue of $631.2 million also fell short of the consensus estimate, as did bookings of 54.1 million. Still, the metaverse stock managed to finish today up 3.4% after Chief Financial Officer Michael Guthrie said on the company’s earnings call that year-over-year growth may have bottomed in March, sooner than anticipated. 
  • Coinbase Global (COIN) shares plunged 26.4% on Wednesday after delivering a pretty disappointing quarterly report. Q1 revenues were off 27% year-over-year to $1.17 billion, widely missing analysts’ expectations for $1.50 billion. Meanwhile, the company swung to a $430 million loss after earning $388 million in the year-ago period. Monthly users were down 19% YoY, too. Also raising eyebrows in the cryptocurrency community was an update to the Risk Factors section in its Form 10-Q, warning that users could potentially lose access to their assets in the event Coinbase ever had to go through bankruptcy proceedings.

Inflation Remains a Top Concern for Investors

Inflation remains top of mind for investors. This is according to the latest Charles Schwab Trader Sentiment Survey, which reviews the outlooks, expectations and trading patterns of 845 Charles Schwab and TDAmeritrade clients. Inflation was the main concern for those surveyed in the report (20% of respondents), followed by geopolitics (15%) and recession/domestic politics (12% apiece). And nearly half of participants (45%) do not believe inflation will begin to ease until 2023. 

“Overall, in the second quarter, market sentiment among traders is unquestionably skewing bearish,” says Barry Metzger, head of trading and education at Schwab. But market participants do see investing opportunities, the report notes.

Among the sectors survey respondents are most bullish on at the moment are energy (70%) and utilities (54%). The industries they are most upbeat toward include cybersecurity (71%) and agriculture (70%). 

And 70% of those surveyed are interested in seeking out opportunities in defense stocks. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unsettled many parts of the stock market, it has also sparked an increase in global military spending, which could create a potential boon for the industry. Here, we’ve compiled a quick list of defense stocks that are poised to benefit from this spending build. The names featured include familiar names as well as some under-the-radar picks – and they all sport top ratings from Wall Street’s pros.

Source: kiplinger.com