For what the source is worth, Yahoo Finance is saying that the big-6 tech earnings are expected to grow a combined 53.7% in 4Q23 vs a -10.5% decline for the other 494 S&P 500 companies. Today we’ve got MSFT and AAPL reporting after the close.
JPM Quants are raising the yellow flag on return concentration here in the US. The share of the top 10 stocks in the MSCI USA Index was over 29% at year-end. The dot com high was 33%. (They’re also cautioning for a market decline, if you’re following their work…)
Musk’s Neuralink implanted a chip in a human patient’s brain with “promising” initial results, or so he says. Who was the guinea pig? Supposedly, the first product (Telepathy) will let folks control their phone or computer just by thinking.
GM is up premarket based on guidance for stronger profits this year, a higher dividend, and a buyback plan. UPS fell after a lackluster full-year revenue forecast—and the co is going to cut 12k jobs and make folks come into the office. Pfizer confirmed its annual outlook. JetBlue is cutting its forecast, thinking about major cost cuts, and licking its wounds from the failed Spirit takeover. F5 crushed it.
French farmers are laying siege on Paris, saying they’ll cut off food, per the Telegraph.
China’s markets vomited last night: Hang Seng -2.32%, Shanghai -1.83%, Shenzhen -2.40%, ChiNext -2.47%. Its 10-year yield fell to 2002 levels, per Bloomberg. The country’s deflating housing bubble, lowered exports, and demographic headwinds are keeping the economy (and markets) under pressure. Even if their currency is down, countries are protecting their turf so that they don’t see China get all the exports.
Morgan Stanley is positive on major US banks (GS, Citi, BofA) because they think the pending capital rules will be less onerous than the current proposal.
UBS is saying that CTAs are liking the tech rally, and they expect CTAs to add another $20-25bn worth of global stocks in the first 2 weeks of Feb, because of lowered realized vol.
BBG is out with a story about currency hedges. Traders are “piling” into them, in case of a Trump win. WaPo had said that Trump told folks he’d put a 60% tariff on China if he wins. Add to that, he’d probably pull out of NATO, stop aid for Ukraine, and do a lot of other geopolitical-related moves that would upend markets, so traders are getting ready with insurance.
BBG is out with a story on robots that is pretty funny. There are humans who are “robot wranglers” because robots can wander off their destined path, act mischievously, and basically annoy human workers. The wranglers will get pinged when the robots misbehave, and then they have to wrangle them back into productive action.
