Afternoon Round-up - May 16, 2023

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• 💃 Gold and bitcoin do a dip while tech stocks pump

• 📝 Debt ceiling disaster averted! Right?

• 🎵 Why is everyone focused on Home Depot?

🕊️ Positive Vibes from Debt Ceiling Meeting: The debt ceiling meeting at the White House went better than a family reunion, with encouraging and conciliatory tones all around. Everyone's agreed to take "default" off the table and are willing to keep chatting over the coming days. Biden might be leaving for Asia, but he's planning to cut his trip short, knowing that he can't miss this episode of the "Debt Ceiling Debates." 🏛️✈️

📉 An Interesting Day on the Markets: It was a day of hide and seek in the markets. On the surface, the S&P 500 saw a modest dip, but the equal-weight index decided to take the plunge. Tech strength, led by the usual suspects (AMZN, GOOGL, MSFT, and NVDA), masked some poor performances elsewhere. Treasury yields went up, while gold and bitcoin both decided to take a synchronized dip. 📊📉

🏠 A Mixed Bag of Economic Signals: Home Depot's results and guidance missed the mark, raising eyebrows about the state of consumers and housing. However, the retail sales report and the NAHB survey painted a more optimistic picture. The day left us feeling like we were in an economic version of "A Tale of Two Cities" - it was the best of reports, it was the worst of reports. 📚🔍

📈 How We're Thinking About Stocks: Home Depot's miss was like seeing a rain cloud on a sunny day. It's not terrible, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on, considering our optimism is anchored in earnings outperformance. That, coupled with FTC's lawsuit against AMGN-HZNP and poor market breadth, does give us pause. However, we're not ready to abandon ship just yet. We're sticking with our bullish outlook, buoyed by earnings strength, the end of Fed rate hikes, and favorable technical factors. In short, we've seen some turbulence, but we're not fastening our seatbelts just yet. 📊🐂

📦💼 TCS (The Container Store), the retail haven for organizational freaks, reported an EPS of $0.18, slightly above Wall Street's estimate of $0.16. But there's a mess on the horizon, with an expected EPS of -$0.13 for FQ1/June, way off from the street's expectation of $0.11. 😬

💸🏦 NWLI (National Western Life), the life insurance company that's been around since your grandpa's time, is stirring things up by exploring "strategic alternatives" to maximize shareholder value. Changes are coming! 🔄

🏛️💰 NYCB (New York Community Bank), your neighborhood-friendly bank, is witnessing the FDIC sell off about 39M of its shares. It's like being put in a garage sale by your own family. 😅

🏢💼 WE (WeWork), the shared office space giant that's seen more plot twists than Game of Thrones, just announced that its CEO Sandeep Mathrani is stepping down. Another day, another shake-up at WeWork. 🔄

📱👨‍⚕️ DOCS (Doximity), the digital haven for doctors, posted an EPS of $0.21 for Q4, beating Wall Street's prediction of $0.17. But their Q1 forecast is more of a bitter pill with an expected revenue of $107M, less than the Street's $112M estimate. 😷

💻🌐 KD (Kyndryl), the company that spun off from IBM's managed infrastructure services unit, reported an EBITDA of $476M for Q4, significantly more than the Street's prediction of $405M. They're forecasting a revenue of ~$16.2B for F24. Things seem to be spinning in the right direction! 📈

🌯 That's a wrap for the day. 🌯

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