[ad_1]
WYRYKI, Poland—After suspected Russian drones violated NATO airspace in recent weeks, closing airports and rattling citizens, European militaries and governments find themselves in a new era of conflict with an urgent need to bolster their defenses.
Allied countries are caught between having to develop long-term solutions to address Russia’s continuing hybrid threats, and a more immediate need to help civilians prepare for the next potential wave of drones. The solutions span from multilayered air-defense systems to civilian target practice against drones.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Sune Engel Rasmussen
Source link
[ad_1]
The Dutch government wrested control of a Netherlands-based semiconductor company from its Chinese owner, a new flare-up in tensions between China and the West over key technologies and materials.
Officials at the Dutch Economic Affairs Ministry said Sunday that they had assumed the power to block or reverse decisions at Nexperia 600745 -10.00%decrease; red down pointing triangle
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Sam Schechner
Source link
[ad_1]
Ahead of a potential meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Beijing dropped a bombshell: China was further restricting access to the supplies that American companies need for computer chips, cars and other technology. The move gives China leverage ahead of expected trade talks with Washington.
Here’s what to know.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Stu Woo
Source link
[ad_1]
An elite Russian unit is escalating its use of drones in Donetsk, forcing the defenders to innovate.
[ad_2]
Jillian Kay Melchior
Source link
[ad_1]
Russia, not long ago a rising military force in Africa, is now struggling to maintain its footprint on the continent.
The Kremlin’s new official guns-for-hire military force, the Africa Corps, has failed to replicate the financial success and political sway once held by Russia’s private Wagner Group mercenary outfit. And some of Wagner’s own African ventures have unraveled since 2023 when its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, rebelled against President Vladimir Putin and then died when an explosive device blew the wing off his plane at 28,000 feet.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Benoit Faucon
Source link
[ad_1]
As Nvidia prepares to publish its much-anticipated full-year results this Wednesday, analysts at JPMorgan say VAT Group, ASML Holding, and ASM International all offer the strongest prospects for investors seeking to cash in on an upturn in the market for microchips.
JPMorgan analysts led by Sandeep Deshpande explained that while the slump in the microchip market is now showing signs of improvement, certain segments of the market — including those that supply chips to the auto and industrial sectors — are improving more slowly than others.
The market for memory chips is, meanwhile, giving off signals of a bumper recovery, with inventory levels for the microchips used in computer storage devices currently sitting at lower than average seasonal levels, they said in a note to clients that published Monday.
As such, those Europe-based semiconductor companies least exposed to the autos and industrial sectors, which have the highest exposure to the market for memory chips, are set to see the biggest benefits in the near term, said Deshpande and the team.
Swiss company VAT Group
VACN,
makes vacuum valves used in chip manufacturing, while Dutch firms ASML Holding
ASML,
ASML,
and ASM International
ASM,
both make the lithography machines used to manufacture semiconductors.
Shares in all three European companies are up significantly over the previous 12 months — VAT has gained 51%, ASML 43% and ASM 81%.
Notably, all three European companies are all focused on making the equipment used to manufacture the advanced microchips used in electronic products, including smartphones and personal computers. In JPMorgan’s view, this puts them in an advantageous position to benefit from any recovery.
At the same time, those companies most exposed to the auto and tech industries, including German firm Infineon Technologies AG
IFX,
and Swiss firm STMicroelectronics
STM,
are set to continue trading at subdued levels — despite already being cheap — as the market remains challenging, they caution.
Deshpande and the team noted that inventory levels for the chips used in the auto and industrial sectors currently sit at rates 38.7% higher than three-year seasonal averages in the fourth-quarter of 2023, marking a deterioration on the 31.1% rate in the third quarter of 2023.
In contrast, inventory levels for memory chips improved significantly in the final three months of 2023, having fallen from rates 19% above seasonal averages in the third quarter to rates 1.7% below normal seasonal levels at the end of the fourth quarter of last year.
For reference, ASML Holding, which was previously split off from ASM International in 1984 through a joint venture with Philips
PHIA,
is currently the world’s sole manufacturer of the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines used to make the advanced chips used in the AI industry.
ASM International continues to design the wafer processing machines used to make microchips. VAT Group produces vacuum valves that are needed to manufacture high tech chips in sterile environments to ensure they are not exposed to outside particles.
Nvidia
NVDA,
the world’s largest chip designer, will on Wednesday announce quarterly results, which investors are expected to pore over, seeking vital clues on the health of the global chip market amid much excitement around a possible AI driven boom.
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
Amazon.com Inc. shares continued their charge higher Friday, securing their highest close in more than two years.
The e-commerce giant’s stock advanced 2.7% in Friday’s session to finish the day at $174.45. That was the best ending level since Dec. 9, 2021, when Amazon’s stock
AMZN,
closed at $147.17, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Don’t miss: Is Meta now a value stock?
Amazon briefly surpassed Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
GOOGL,
as the third most valuable U.S. company by market capitalization last week, though it’s since fallen back to the No. 4 spot. Still, the recent momentum for Amazon shares has been enough to help the company hold down a place in the top four even as Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
nips at its heels.
Alphabet finished Friday’s session with a $1.86 trillion market cap, while Amazon’s was $1.81 trillion and Nvidia’s was $1.78 trillion.
Wall Street had a mixed reaction to earnings from big technology companies this quarter, but Amazon’s results were among those that were well received.
See also: Amazon says the ‘magic words.’ They spurred a $130 billion market-cap boost.
“Overall the overhangs which kept a lid on AMZN shares — e-commerce deceleration in 2021, e-commerce deceleration and margin compression in 2022 and AWS deceleration in 2023 — will have dissipated throughout 2024,” UBS analyst Stephen Ju wrote in a note to clients following those results.
The company has been a huge driver of earnings growth for the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector, as its quarterly earnings per share grew to $1 in the latest quarter from 3 cents a year before. The consumer discretionary sector is now expected to post 33% growth in EPS for the fourth quarter, according to FactSet, but without Amazon, that would swing to a decline of about 1%.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
The Biden administration’s announcement Friday that it’s pausing liquefied natural gas export approvals sparked political backlash, drew cheers from climate activists and stoked uncertainty in energy markets, but is unlikely to see the U.S. give up its title as the world’s top LNG exporter.
The U.S. will delay its decisions on new LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries, allowing time for the Energy Department to update the underlying analyses for LNG export authorizations, the White House said.
Those analyses are roughly five years old and “no longer adequately account for considerations” such as potential cost increases for American consumers and manufacturers or the “latest assessment of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions,” it said.
The Biden administration likely “realizes the role of LNG in foreign policy, but at the same time it needs to show the Democrat base that it is doing something for climate change,” said Anas Alhajji, an independent energy expert and managing partner at Energy Outlook Advisors, pointing out that the announcement comes during a presidential election year.
“Delaying one project or stopping it may not be a big deal, but it is a problem if it becomes a trend,” he said in emailed commentary.
Environmental groups, which have pushed for action, cheered the decision.
The 12 impacted projects in the U.S. “would spew out as much climate-warming pollution as 223 coal plants per year, and they present explosion risks to the communities where they’re located and emit other health-harming chemicals,” the Sierra Club, an environmental group, said in a statement welcoming the decision.
The announcement is particularly important for a nation that became the world’s biggest LNG exporter in the span of less than a decade.
The U.S. became the world’s largest LNG exporter during the first half of 2022 on the back of increases in LNG export capacity, international natural gas and LNG prices, and global demand, particularly in Europe, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Less than a decade ago, U.S. LNG exports were negligible. The country had only started exporting LNG from the Lower 48 states in 2016, the EIA said.
The country’s exports of LNG climbed to a fresh record in November 2023, with the EIA reporting domestic exports of 386.2 billion cubic feet, up from 384.4 bcf a month earlier. Exports in December 2016 were at just 41.8 bcf.
EIA
With 90% of U.S. LNG going to non-free trade agreement destinations, withholding licensing effectively “halts project development,” John Miller, managing director, ESG and sustainability policy at TD Cowen wrote in a Friday note.
LNG equities with operating facilities likely won’t benefit from the administration’s announcement, at least not immediately, until the impacts of this pause in export approvals to non-FTA countries becomes more clear, Jason Gabelman, director, sustainability & energy transition at TD Cowen said.
U.S. companies with government approvals that have not been sanctioned, “could have a higher probability of moving forward this year, albeit modestly” as offtakers may be hesitant to sign up to new U.S. projects with LNG development getting “politicized,” he said. Among those, he pointed out approvals for proposed liquefaction units at NextDecade Corp.’s
NEXT,
Rio Grande LNG export facility project in Brownsville, Texas.
At the same time, it would not be a surprise if U.S. LNG companies pursuing growth that do not yet have non-FTA approval see downside pressure, said Gabelman.
LNG projects take around 4 years to build and any delays to project sanctions today will take “multiple years to manifest in the market,” he said.
Still, the U.S. announcement “introduces the risk of more stringent oversight that could limit new U.S. capacity” more than four years out, Gabelman said.
Companies that supply equipment to LNG liquefaction projects include Baker Hughes Co.
BKR,
and Chart Industries Inc.
GTLS,
said Marc Bianchi, a senior energy analyst at TD Cowen.
Any slowing of approval would create “overhand on order growth,” he said.
The White House said Friday that its decision will not impact the ability of the U.S. to continue supplying LNG to its allies in the near term but also acknowledged environmental concerns.
“I think we’ve got to be clear eyed about the challenges that we face. The climate crisis is an existential crisis, and we’ve got to be, I think, really forward leaning into making sure that we’re taking that head on,” said Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate adviser, told reporters Friday.
He added that given the number of approvals already completed, the number of projects under construction are set to double existing capacity with approvals beyond that set to double capacity yet again.
“So there’s a long runway here, and we’re taking a step back and thinking, OK, let’s take a hard look before that runway continues to build out,” he said.
Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise, argued that U.S. LNG exports actually reduce global carbon emissions as natural gas typically “displaces coal to generate electricity in countries such as China and India.”
They also improve global energy security as U.S. natural gas is becoming Europe’s primary energy supplier, replacing Russia, he said.
In a statement Friday, Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said that if the Biden administration has facts to prove that additional LNG export capacity would hurt Americans, it needs to make that information public. But if the pause is “another political ploy to pander to keep-it-in-the-ground climate activists,” he said he would “do everything in my power to end this pause immediately.
Manchin plans to hold a hearing on the decision in the coming weeks.
The U.S. decision to delay new LNG export permits is unlikely to have an impact on domestic natural-gas supplies or prices, said Energy Outlook Advisors’ Alhajji.
Still, the EIA noted in its Annual Energy Outlook released in March of last year that it remains uncertain as to how LNG export capacity will affect domestic prices, consumption and supply.
LNG prices and the rate at which new LNG export terminals can be constructed help determine LNG export volumes, the EIA said, and higher LNG exports can result in upward pressure on U.S. natural-gas prices, while lower U.S. LNG exports can pressure prices.
On Friday, natural gas for February delivery
NG00,
NGG24,
settled at $2.71 per million British thermal units, up 7.7% for the week.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is likely to keep its position as the world’s top LNG exporter, according to Tortoise’s Thummel.
The U.S. is the currently the largest LNG exporter at almost 12 bcf per day, with Qatar coming in second, he said.
Qatar is expanding its LNG export capacity and is expected to have the ability to export almost 20 bcf per day by 2028, he said. The EIA reported recently that Qatar has averaged 10.3 bcf per day in exports during the last 10 years.
That would mark sizable growth. But the EIA reported in November that LNG export capacity from North America is likely to more than double from around 11.4 bcf per day to 24.3 bcf per day by the end of 2027.
EIA
Given expected growth in U.S. LNG export capacity, the U.S. is likely to “remain the largest exporter of LNG in the world” despite the U.S. announcement, said Thummel.
—Victor Reklaitis contributed.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
As Intel Corp.’s stock plunged to its biggest one-day drop in about three and a half years, analysts had some harsh words for the chip maker.
“How many times can you push the reset button?” Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon asked in a note to clients.
While he thought many investors were bracing for the company to miss on its first-quarter forecast, the outlook came in “extremely weak and clearly worse than feared.” Intel
INTC,
expects $12.7 billion in revenue at the midpoint, while analysts had been looking for $14.3 billion.
See more: Intel seen struggling to ‘find its footing’ as guidance miss sends stock tanking
“After yet another major reset this story probably just shifted to 2026 at the earliest for the bulls, and there is a lot of meat for the bears to sink their teeth into in the meantime,” Rasgon wrote, while sticking with his market-perform rating and $42 target price.
Baird’s Tristan Gerra highlighted challenges for Intel’s data-center and artificial-intelligence unit, which is “on track for a third consecutive year of revenue declines,” while his own revenue forecast implies a 14-year low.
Gaudi, the company’s accelerator chip for artificial-intelligence applications, “does not seem enough to lift [data-center] revenue, while gross margin will be impacted by higher depreciation inclusive of an expected U.S. Chip Act credit,” Gerra continued.
He also expressed some concerns about the company’s broader road ahead.
“Can top-line growth in future years be sufficient to fund continued node migration?” Gerra said. “Many hurdles remain, notably ramping units from this year’s small base (small baseline for Intel 4 makes it more challenging to yield at the next node), while [the Intel Foundry Service] revenue ramp entirely depends on future node execution including yield and performance.”
Gerra has a neutral rating and $40 target price on Intel’s stock.
Shares fell 11.9% in Friday trading, making for their worst single-day percentage decline since July 24, 2020, when they fell 16.2%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Needham’s N. Quinn Bolton, meanwhile, downgraded the stock to hold from buy in the wake of Thursday afternoon’s report, calling the earnings reset “unexpected.”
“In addition to an overall worsening risk-reward, Intel’s core [data-center] business is challenged by a shift to accelerated computing architectures and direct competition from AMD and ARM,” he wrote. “We expect AI to remain the spending priority in the data center for the next several quarters. To that end, dollars will continue moving away from Intel’s core competency.”
Read: Missed the boat on AMD’s stock surge? Why this analyst says you’re not too late.
Rosenblatt’s Hans Mosesmann took a similar view as he argued that Intel’s sales outlook is “contrary to the uber bullish messaging to the Street and is consistent with share losses to AMD, a lack of any perceivable AI growth vector that moves any dial, and points to another, yes another, transitional year.”
Artificial intelligence “seems like everywhere except at Intel,” he continued, noting that his stance on the stock “has not changed for many years.” Mosesmann continues to rate it at sell.
Opinion: Intel’s stock plunge shows that Wall Street still hasn’t learned its lesson on AI hype
Raymond James analyst Srini Pajjuri, however, was more upbeat about Intel’s ability to capitalize on AI. “While Intel won’t likely get much credit for AI in the near term, we are encouraged by the growing pipeline for Gaudi accelerators ($2b+) and expect meaningful revenue contribution” in the second half of 2024, he wrote, while sticking with his outperform call but cutting his target price to $52 from $54.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
United Airlines Holdings Inc. on Tuesday said it was rethinking its longer-term plans for Boeing’s biggest 737 Max jet, the Max 10, after the government’s grounding of dozens of Max 9s this month raised questions over whether the aircraft maker could still deliver planes on time.
United
UAL,
Chief Executive Scott Kirby said during the airline’s earnings call on Tuesday that it wasn’t canceling its orders for the Max 10. But he said the airline was taking the jet “out of our internal plans.”
“We’ll be working on what that means exactly with Boeing,” he said. “But Boeing is not going to be able to meet their contractual deliveries on at least many of those airplanes.”
United, during the call, said that it had 277 Max 10 jets on order for the rest of the decade. Of the 107 jets set for delivery this year, 31 were Max 9s. But Chief Financial Officer Michael Leskinen said was “unrealistic” to expect those jets to arrive as currently planned.
“Look,” he said. “The reality is that with the with the Max grounding, this is the kind of straw that broke the camel’s back with believing that the Max 10 will deliver on the schedule we had hoped for.”
He added: “It’s a great aircraft. But we can’t count on it. So we’re working on alternate plans.”
The decision on the Max 10 marks the latest blow to Boeing’s
BA,
reputation, as safety concerns pile up after a panel tore off a 737 Max 9 jet flown by Alaska Airlines earlier this month.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9s for inspections, leading to scores of flight cancellations for both United and Alaska
ALK,
United, when it reported fourth-quarter results on Monday, said it expected to lose money in the first quarter, following the impact of those cancellations. Still, shares were up on Tuesday on United’s full-year profit forecast.
The FAA over the weekend also recommended that operators of Boeing’s 737-900ER planes “visually inspect mid-exit door plugs to ensure the door is properly secured.” Regulators around the world grounded the 737 Max in 2019 after two fatal crashes.
Meanwhile, Ben Minicucci, the chief executive of Alaska Airlines, in an interview with NBC News published Tuesday, said inspectors found loose bolts on “many” of its Boeing 737 Max 9s after the mid-flight blowout.
“I’m more than frustrated and disappointed,” he said in that interview. “I am angry. This happened to Alaska Airlines. It happened to our guests and happened to our people. And my demand on Boeing is, what are they going to do to improve their quality programs in-house?”
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares slid Wednesday after a decline overnight on Wall Street and disappointing China growth data, while Tokyo’s main benchmark momentarily hit another 30-year high.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225
NIY00,
reached a session high of 36,239.22, but reverted lower, last down 0.3% to 35,477. The Nikkei has been hitting new 34-year highs, or the best since February 1990 during the so-called financial bubble. Buying focused on semiconductor-related shares, and a cheap yen helped boost exporter issues.
Don’t miss: Wall Street firms catch up to Buffett enthusiasm on Japan as Nikkei keeps hitting records
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
HK:HSCI
tumbled 4% to 15,220.72, with losses building after data showed China hitting its economic growth target of 5.2% for 2023, surpassing government expectations, but short of the 5.3% some analysts expected. The Shanghai Composite
CN:SHCOMP
shed 2% to 2,833.62.
Read on: China hit its economic-growth target without ‘massive stimulus,’ boasts Premier Li Qiang
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
AU:ASX10000
slipped 0.2% to 7,401.30. South Korea’s Kospi
KR:180721
dropped 2.4% to 2,435.90.
Investors were keeping their eyes on upcoming earnings reports, as well as potential moves by the world’s central banks, to gauge their next moves.
Wall Street slipped in a lackluster return to trading following a three-day holiday weekend.
See: What’s next for stocks as ‘tired’ market stalls in 2024 ahead of closely watched retail sales
The S&P 500
SPX
fell 17.85 points, or 0.4%, to 4,765.98. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
dropped 231.86, or 0.6%, to 37,361.12, and the Nasdaq
COMP
sank 28.41, or 0.2%, to 14,944.35.
Spirit Airlines
SAVE,
lost 47.1% after a U.S. judge blocked its takeover by JetBlue Airways
JBLU,
on concerns it would mean higher airfares for flyers. JetBlue rose 4.9%.
Stocks of banks were mixed, meanwhile, as earnings reporting season ramps up for the final three months of 2023. Morgan Stanley
MS,
sank 4.2% after it said a legal matter and a special assessment knocked $535 million off its pretax earnings, while Goldman Sachs
GS,
edged 0.7% higher after reporting results that topped Wall Street’s forecasts.
Companies across the S&P 500 are likely to report meager growth in profits for the fourth quarter from a year earlier, if any, if Wall Street analysts’ forecasts are to be believed. Earnings have been under pressure for more than a year because of rising costs amid high inflation.
But optimism is higher for 2024, where analysts are forecasting a strong 11.8% growth in earnings per share for S&P 500 companies, according to FactSet. That, plus expectations for several cuts to interest rates by the Federal Reserve this year, have helped the S&P 500 rally to 10 winning weeks in the last 11. The index remains within 0.6% of its all-time high set two years ago.
Treasury yields
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
have already sunk on expectations for upcoming cuts to interest rates, which traders believe could begin as early as March. It’s a sharp turnaround from the past couple years, when the Federal Reserve was hiking rates drastically in hopes of getting high inflation under control.
The Tell: No rate cuts in 2024? Why investors should think about the ‘unthinkable.’
Easier rates and yields relax the pressure on the economy and financial system, while also boosting prices for investments. And for the past six months, interest rates have been the main force moving the stock market, according to Michael Wilson, strategist at Morgan Stanley.
He sees that dynamic continuing in the near term, with the “bond market still in charge.”
For now, traders are penciling in many more cuts to rates through 2024 than the Fed itself has indicated. That raises the potential for big market swings around each speech by a Fed official or economic report.
Yields rose in the bond market after Fed governor Christopher Waller said in a speech that “policy is set properly” on interest rates. Following the speech, traders pushed some bets for the Fed’s first cut to rates to happen in May instead of March.
On Wall Street, Boeing fell to one of the market’s sharper losses as worries continue about troubles for its 737 Max 9 aircraft following the recent in-flight blowout of an Alaska Air
ALK,
jet. Boeing
BA,
lost 7.9%.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude
CL00,
lost 90 cents to $71.75 a barrel. Brent crude
BRN00,
the international standard, fell 78 cents to $77.68 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar
USDJPY,
rose to 147.90 Japanese yen from 147.09 yen. The euro
EURUSD,
cost $1.0868, down from $1.0880.
MarketWatch contributed to this report
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
As Boeing stock enters its second week of volatile trading following the 737 MAX 9 accident, and it’s still not quite clear whether its shares have been punished enough—or if there is more pain ahead.
[ad_1]
Jan 12, 2024, 1:00 am EST
The Magnificent Seven had an extraordinary year in 2023—one that will be very difficult to repeat. And there will be a new Magnificent Seven in 2024.
Continue reading this article with a Barron’s subscription.
View Options
[ad_1]
U.S. stock indexes were edging higher on Wednesday with technology stocks looking to extend gains ahead of the December inflation report, which is expected to shed more direct light on when the Federal Reserve could dial back its two-year-long effort to tighten monetary policy and cool the economy.
On Tuesday, the Dow industrials fell 0.4%, to 37,525, while the S&P 500 declined 0.2%, to 4,757, and the Nasdaq Composite gained less than 0.1%, to 14,858.
Inflation and its impact on bond markets and the Federal Reserve’s monetary-policy trajectory are the primary focus for markets this week as investors remain on hold ahead of Thursday’s December inflation reading and high-profile corporate earnings reports on Friday, when some of the big banks will kick off the fourth-quarter 2023 earnings season.
The S&P 500 sits less than 0.7% shy of its record high of 4796.6 touched a little over two years ago, after rallying strongly in the last few months primarily on hopes that easing inflation will allow the Fed to lower interest rates sooner and faster than the markets previously anticipated.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y,
the benchmark for borrowing costs, has fallen from 5% in October to 4.014% on Wednesday.
But for this bullish narrative to play out, inflation must be seen continuing to fall back to the central bank’s 2% target. That’s why great importance is therefore being placed on the consumer-price index for December, which will be published at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursday.
See: These traders bet on surprise blip higher in key December inflation reading
Economists forecast that annual headline CPI inflation inched up to 3.2% last month from 3.1% in November. The core reading, which strips out more volatile items like food and energy, is expected to fall from 4% to 3.8%.
Adam Phillips, director of portfolio strategy at EP Wealth Advisors, said the CPI report may give investors enough confidence that the disinflation is likely to continue, even if the price levels are “still a very long way from anything that is considered healthy.”
However, he cautioned that the economy has “certain factors” that are beyond the Fed’s control, such as the volatility in supply chains and growing geopolitical risks, as well as a potential resurgence in inflation, he told MarketWatch via phone on Wednesday.
“[E]quities have remained broadly range-bound since just before Christmas, with little to push them in either direction,” said Jim Reid, strategist at Deutsche Bank.
“That might change soon, since we’ve got the U.S. CPI print tomorrow, and then the start of earnings season on Friday, but for now at least, there’s been few headlines for investors to latch onto, just a bit of indigestion after over exuberance before New Year left markets with a little bit of an extended hangover,” Reid added.
In U.S. economic data, the wholesale inventories declined 0.2% in November, in line with Wall Street expectations, as manufacturers continue to juggle with a fragile economy, according to the Commerce Department.
New York Fed President John Williams will speak in White Plains, N.Y., at 3:15 p.m. Eastern time.
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
The former bond king doesn’t like the fixed-income security that’s the lynchpin of the financial world.
Bill Gross, the retired fund manager and co-founder of Pacific Investment Management, took to the social-media service X to say that the 10-year Treasury
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
is “overvalued” with a yield of 4%. Yields move in the opposite direction to prices.
Through Monday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury has fallen 99 basis points from its late October peak.
He said the 10-year Treasury inflation-protected yield at 1.80% is the better choice. “If you need to buy bonds. I don’t,” said Gross.
Gross also continued to talk of his idea to go long 2-year bonds
BX:TMUBMUSD02Y
while shorting the 10-year. “Stick with the return to a positive 10 year/2 year yield curve. Earns carry while you wait,” he said. In previous posts, he talked of making such trades via Treasury futures contracts.
Gross said he was taking a bow for his recommendation of regional bank stocks six months ago and mortgage REITs in December. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF
KRE
has climbed 49% from its May 4 low, and the iShares Mortgage Real Estate ETF
REM
has gained 21% from its late October low. Gross in November highlighted Annaly Capital Management
NLY,
and AGNC Investment Corp.
AGNC,
as mortgage REITs he likes for 2024.
Gross said he still likes Capri Holdings
CPRI,
as a merger arbitrage target. Tapestry
TPR,
in August agreed to buy Capri for $57 per share, and on Monday, Capri closed at $50.49.
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
Alaska Airlines, United Airlines and Turkish Airlines have all grounded their Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes after part of one such jet tore away during an Alaska Airlines flight on Friday. But despite the potential safety risks for travelers and further damage to Boeing’s
BA,
reputation, some Wall Street analysts, for now, have downplayed the financial impact for the jet maker.
In part, they pointed to the company’s status as one of two major players in aircraft production — the other being Airbus
EADSY,
They also cited a tighter supply of available aircraft and limited near-term impact, at least while investigators try to figure out the cause of the incident.
Those airlines and others took the action over the weekend after a panel on a jet blew out about 10 minutes into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 at an altitude of about 16,000 feet.
No one died in the incident. But the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the temporary grounding of certain Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft. The order covered 171 planes.
Shares of Boeing fell 8.2% as the stock weighed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA.
Still, some Wall Street analysts on Monday said to buy the stock anyway. They said the latest difficulties with the aircraft — which follow the 2019 grounding of Max jets by many nations following two fatal crashes — were unlikely to have a big near-term financial impact.
BofA analysts, in a research note dated Sunday, said that “at this point in time, due to the duopoly nature of the industry, we do not see this impacting orders for any of the 737 MAX variants. However, if the hits to the program do keep coming … at some point, the flying public may lose confidence in the 737 MAX which could ultimately impact sales.”
The analysts said it wasn’t clear yet whether the blowout on Friday was due to an assembly mistake at Boeing, an improper installation from fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems or oversight issues elsewhere. But they noted that the aircraft was relatively new, having been delivered on Oct. 31. And they said that “some scrutiny must be saved for regulators as well, as the FAA is ultimately responsible for certificating these aircraft before delivery.”
Spirit AeroSystems’ stock
SPR,
was down 11%.
Analysts at William Blair also said they didn’t expect a big hit to Boeing’s financials.
“While the Alaska Airlines door plug accident was terrifying, we do not believe that it will have a major financial impact, unless another incident occurs after the aircraft returns to service,” they said in a note on Monday.
Analysts there estimated that over the past two months, the Max 9 made up less than one-fifth of Boeing’s total deliveries. They said those deliveries would only be “modestly impacted over the first quarter as it could take some time to determine the cause.”
Of the 23 analyst ratings on Boeing’s stock tracked by FactSet, 18 are buy ratings or the equivalent.
Read more: How Boeing’s latest 737 Max problem is hurting the Dow
However, Morgan Stanley analyst Ravi Shanker said the 737 Max 9 issues will likely disrupt first-quarter results for United Airlines
UAL,
and Alaska Air
ALK,
“This will hopefully be a situation resolved in days/weeks rather than months, but it will also serve as a reminder of how fragile airline capacity can be despite the overhang of capacity,” Shanker said in a Monday research note.
United Airlines’ stock rose 2.4% on Monday, while Alaska Air’s dipped by 0.3%.
Along with United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Turkish Airlines, Copa Airlines and Aeromexico grounded about 40 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes, according to reports.
According to Deutsche Bank analysts, the affected fleet accounts for 16.1% of Alaska Airlines flights and 6.6% of United flights, although United has more 737 Max 9 aircraft than Alaska.
Other airlines with the plane in their fleet include Jet Airways of India with one plane, Jin Air of Korea with three, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
KLMR,
with five and Korean Air Lines
003490,
with nine, according to Planespotter.net.
European regulators also grounded the 737 Max 9 for inspection.
Some major airlines do not have any 737 Max 9s in their fleets, including American Airlines
AAL,
Southwest Airlines
LUV,
and Air Canada
AC,
according to reports.
Also read: Shares in Boeing slump, supplier Spirit AeroSystems tanks, after panel blows out
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
Alaska Airlines grounded all of its Boeing 737-9 aircraft late Friday, hours after a window and piece of fuselage on one such plane blew out in midair and forced an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon.
The incident occurred shortly after takeoff and the gaping hole caused the cabin to depressurize. Flight data showed the plane climbed to 16,000 feet (4,876 meters) before returning to Portland International Airport.
The airline
ALK,
said the plane landed safely with 174 passengers and six crew members.
“Following tonight’s event on Flight 1282, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement.
Each of the aircraft will be returned to service after full maintenance and safety inspections, which Minicucci said the airline anticipated completing within days.
The airline provided no immediate information about whether anyone was injured or the possible cause.
The plane was diverted about about six minutes after taking off at 5:07 p.m., according to flight tracking data from the FlightAware website. It landed at 5:26 p.m.
The pilot told Portland air traffic controllers the plane had an emergency, was depressurized and needed to return to the airport, according to a recording made by the website LiveATC.net.
A passenger sent KATU-TV in Portland a photo showing the hole in the side of the airplane next to passenger seats. Video shared with the station showed people wearing oxygen masks and passengers clapping as the plane landed.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it was investigating an event on the flight and would post updates when they are available. The Federal Aviation Administration also said it would investigate.
The Boeing 737-9 MAX involved in the incident rolled off the assembly line and received its certification just two months ago, according to online FAA records.
The plane had been on 145 flights since entering commercial service on Nov. 11, said FlightRadar24, another tracking service. The flight from Portland was the aircraft’s third of the day.
Boeing
BA,
said it was aware of the incident, working to gather more information and ready to support the investigation.
The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on U.S. domestic flights. The plane went into service in May 2017.
Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people and leading to a near two-year worldwide grounding of all Max 8 and Max 9 planes.
The planes returned to service only after Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.
Last year, the FAA told pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system on the Max in dry conditions because of concern that inlets around the engines could overheat and break away, possibly striking the plane.
Max deliveries have been interrupted at times to fix manufacturing flaws. The company told airlines in December to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
Nvidia Corp. is raking in billions in cash, but one analyst thinks the chip maker could throw $100 billion more onto the pile if it started to look more like Salesforce Inc.
Nvidia
NVDA,
might unlock even more cash by developing businesses that expand recurring revenue, according to BofA Securities analyst Vivek Arya. The company has suffered some boom-and-bust cycles in recent years, and another bust could be smoothed by developing longer-term software contracts akin to those of Salesforce
CRM,
, Workday Inc.
WDAY,
and ServiceNow Inc.
NOW,
which generate recurring revenue from their customers.
Arya sees a pathway for Nvidia to rake in $100 billion in incremental free cash flow over the next two years if it can bulk up its own recurring-revenue options.
Read: Apple’s stock needs to get ‘unstuck’ — and its innovation rut may not be helping
“While NVDA has a solid lead in AI, hardware-oriented businesses are not valued as highly as visibility tends to be limited,” Arya wrote. Nvidia generates only about $1 billion, or 2%, of its sales from software and subscriptions. Arya doesn’t think the company can get much higher than $5 billion with its software and subscription offerings unless it turns to acquisitions.
Nvidia has shown some openness to deals that would beef up its intellectual property and software offerings, Arya notes, as it tried to buy British chip designer Arm Holdings
ARM,
before facing regulatory pushback.
“We envision [Nvidia] considering more enhanced partnerships/M&A of software companies that are helping traditional enterprise customers deploy, monitor and analyze [generative AI] apps,” he wrote. Nvidia “is already serving them via on-premise hardware and/or its DGX cloud service, but we believe greater direct recurring software/service channel could be more impactful.”
The addition of more recurring-revenue streams could help Nvidia’s “relatively depressed trading multiple,” in Arya’s view. Nvidia shares trade at a 20% to 30% discount to its “Magnificent Seven” peers on the basis of price to earnings as well as enterprise value to free cash flow, even though the company’s compound annual growth rate on the top line is three times what it is for those other tech giants.
The discount is “partly due to uncertainty in [calendar 2025] growth prospects, and partly due to a very hardware-dependent business unlike other large-cap software/internet peers that have recurring-revenue profiles,” he wrote.
Arya has a buy rating and $700 price objective on the stock.
See also: Amazon’s stock could be helped by this secret weapon in 2024, BofA says
[ad_2]
[ad_1]
The numbers: A closely watched index that measures U.S. manufacturing activity rose by 0.7 percentage point to 47.4 in December, according to the Institute for Supply Management on Wednesday.
Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal had forecast the index to rise to 47.2.
Any number below 50 reflects a shrinking economy. Manufacturing has contracted for 14 straight months.
Key details: The key new-orders index fell 1.2 percentage points to 47.1 in December.
Production rose 1.8 percentage points to 50.3 from the prior month. Employment picked up slightly but remained below the 50-percentage-point threshold.
Prices fell 4.7 percentage points to 45.2. That’s the biggest drop since May 2023. Inventories were down 0.5 percentage point to 44.3 in December.
Customer inventories dipped back below 50 last month to 48.1 in December.
Only one industry, primary metals, reported growth in December, while 16 reported contractions.
Layoffs picked up in December, concentrated in the computer and electronics, machinery, and food and beverage sectors.
Big picture: The contraction in manufacturing is the longest since 2000-01, after the dot-com bubble exploded, said Jay Hawkins, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
Economists said that depressed capital spending has been the key drag on the factory sector, along with weak global trade. They expect that a sharp drop in long-term interest rates will improve the picture, but the change won’t happen overnight.
What the ISM said: Tim Fiore, chair of the ISM manufacturing survey committee, was relatively upbeat about the data. He said the sector was closing the year in a “really good position” and forecast that the ISM factory index would rise above the 50-percentage-point threshold by March. Fiore said he also expects the inventory number to pick up in coming months.
What economists said: “The survey indicates that conditions in the factory sector remain unusually weak and that output is likely to continue declining for at least a few more months,” said Andrew Hunter, deputy chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
Market reaction: Stocks
DJIA
SPX
were lower in early trading on Wednesday, while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
rose to just below 4%.
[ad_2]