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Salesforce Inc. shares rallied in the extended session Wednesday after the customer-relations management software giant’s earnings outlook topped Wall Street expectations two weeks ahead of its annual confab.
Salesforce CRM shares rallied more than 6% after hours, and held steadily in that range during the conference call with analysts, following a 1.5% rise to close the regular session at $215.04.
The…
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China’s property developers are under duress again, re-igniting concerns about a debt crisis. But with a faltering economy and diminished confidence among households and companies, China debt watcher Charlene Chu, senior analyst at Autonomous Research, worries the ingredients are there for a broader financial crisis for the first time.
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U.S. stocks traded lower for a third straight day on Thursday as rising bond yields spurred weakness in some of the so-called Magnificent Seven megacap stocks, helping to drive the Nasdaq to a six-week low.
The Dow and S&P 500 were on track to extend a losing streak to a third straight session as major indexes headed for another week in the red. The S&P 500 hasn’t fallen for three weeks in a row since February, FactSet data show.
Bonds have resumed command of the stock market of late as higher yields lash shares of megacap technology stocks, undermining their status as the undisputed market leaders.
Long-dated Treasury yields continued to rise Thursday, with the 10-year yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
touching its highest level since the 2008 financial crisis, rising north of 4.31%. Bond yields move inversely to prices.
Rising yields helped heap more pressure on shares of some of this year’s highflying tech stocks, including Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
Apple Inc.
AAPL,
and Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
The elite group of megacap tech stocks which also includes Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Corp.
META,
and Alphabet Inc.’s Class A
GOOGL,
and Class C
GOOG,
shares has been credited with driving much of the Nasdaq Composite’s nearly 30% run-up year-to-date. But their market dominance has faded in recent weeks as investors have favored other cyclical sectors like energy and materials stocks. Those two sectors were the best performers on the S&P 500 on Thursday.
“That’s a theme that’s been bubbling up here over the last three to four weeks, but there’s more of an exclamation point on it now,” said David Keller, chief market strategist at Stockcharts.com, during a phone interview with MarketWatch.
“First you had Microsoft and Apple breaking down a few weeks ago, now you’re getting Meta breaking below its 50-day moving average.”
Keller added that rising bond yields tend to have a bigger impact on growth stocks like technology names, while sectors like energy are more resilient.
“Energy can do just fine in a rising rate environment. energy and materials should probably do better in a relative basis,” he said.
Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s July meeting released Wednesday afternoon were being blamed for the latest leg higher in global bond yields. They showed that Fed policy makers could continue raising interest rates amid concerns that inflation could reaccelerate, potentially pushing bond yields even higher.
“It’s really uncertain where terminal interest rates will land given the economy isn’t giving us a decisive picture of being too strong or too weak. It’s keeping the window open for more rate hikes potentially,” said Mohannad Aama, a portfolio manager at Beam Capital Management, during a phone interview with MarketWatch.
Corporate earnings were also in focus as investors received results from Cisco Systems
CSCO,
and retail giant Walmart Inc.
WMT,
Cisco reported strong quarterly results after Wednesday’s close. Walmart also reported stronger than expected earnings, helping to offset some concerns about the strength of the consumer spurred by Target Corp.’s
TGT,
lackluster earnings and guidance from Wednesday.
Shares of Cisco rose 2.6%, while Walmart shares turned lower, down 1.2%.
Economic updates released Thursday helped support the notion that the U.S. economy is growing at a faster pace than economists had expected, potentially complicating the Fed’s efforts to tamp down inflation.
First-time jobless-benefit claims fell by 11,000 to 239,000 last week, a sign that layoffs in the U.S. labor market remain low. The Philadelphia Fed factory index also shot higher to 12 in August, up from negative 13.5 during the prior month, a sign that manufacturers in the U.S. could be exiting a slump.
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The numbers: Builder confidence waned in August as the 30-year mortgage rate surged, dampening U.S. home-buying interest.
Despite a persistent shortage of homes on the market for resale, builders have lost confidence in the late summer amid declining customer traffic from higher mortgage rates, as well as challenges in the construction process.
Mortgage…
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Home Depot, Target, Cisco, Deere, Walmart, and More Stocks to Watch This Week
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The thing that will make companies lower prices is if consumers stop complaining about paying more for the things they need and want, and actually start refusing to buy them.
As the U.S. corporate earnings-reporting season progresses, with earnings from major retailers Walmart Inc.
WMT,
Target Corp.
TGT,
and Home Depot Inc.
HD,
on tap next week, investors can get a ground-floor view of how consumer demand may have been hurt, or not, by higher prices, and what the companies plan to do, or not do, about it.
This dynamic of how consumers adjust their spending habits when prices change is referred to by economists as the price elasticity of demand.
“ For companies to cut prices, ‘you have to have the consumer go on strike, and they’re not there yet.’”
Those who trust companies will choose to ratchet down prices on their own, or at least not raise them because the rise in input costs has been slowing, haven’t been listening to what the many companies have told analysts on their post-earnings-report conference calls.
Read: U.S. inflation eases again, PCE shows. Prices rise at slowest pace in almost two years.
Kraft Heinz Co.
KHC,
acknowledged after its second-quarter report that its relatively higher prices have hurt demand, but not by enough for the food and condiments company to consider cutting prices.
Colgate-Palmolive Co.
CL,
said it will continue to raise prices, even as inflation slows and selling volume declines, as the consumer-products company continues to be laser focused on boosting margins and profits.
And while PepsiCo Inc.
PEP,
was worried that elasticities would increase, given how its lower-income customers were being particularly pressured by inflation, the beverage and snack giant reported strong results as it witnessed “better elasticities” in most of the markets in which it operated.
“Obviously, there is still carryover pricing, and I don’t think we’ll do anything different than our normal cycles on pricing in the balance of the year,” PepsiCo Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston told analysts, according to an AlphaSense transcript.
Basically, as MarketWatch has reported, so-called greedflation is alive and well.
Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group, said as long as the job market stays strong, as it is now, corporate greed will continue to pay off.
“If something is more expensive, and you have a job, you’ll complain about it, but you won’t substitute it for something cheaper,” Cox said. For companies to cut prices, “you have to have the consumer go on strike, and they’re not there yet,” Cox added.
“ ‘At some point, people are going to say, “All right — enough.” ’ ”
The reason elasticity is so important in the current environment is that, as long as consumers continue to pay the higher prices companies are charging, inflation will remain stubbornly high, making it, in turn, more likely that the Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates or, at the very least, not lower them.
But the longer interest rates stay high enough to crimp economic growth, the more likely the stock market will reverse lower as recession fears rise.
“At some point, people are going to say, ‘All right — enough,’ ” said Paul Nolte, senior wealth manager and market strategist at Murphy & Sylvest Wealth Management. “But we just haven’t seen that yet.”
What is elasticity?
Economists use the term “price elasticity of demand” to refer to the way in which consumers adjust their spending habits when prices change.
“Elasticity tries to measure how much more producers will want to produce if prices rise, and how much more consumers will want to buy if prices fall,” explained Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica.
Elasticity often depends on the type of product a company sells.
For example, consumer-discretionary-goods companies that sell products and services that people want will often experience greater price elasticity than consumer-staples companies that sell things that people need, such as groceries and prescription drugs.
But even for needs, consumers often still have a choice, as less expensive generic, or private-label, alternatives may be available.
Andre Schulten, chief financial officer of consumer-staples maker Procter & Gamble Co.
PG,
which recently beat earnings expectations as it continued to raise prices, telling analysts that, while there was “some trading into private label,” the overall market share of private-label products was unchanged for the year.
As Harris Financial’s Cox said, consumers may be complaining about higher prices, but they aren’t yet desperate enough to stop buying.
The Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book economic survey stated that business contacts in some districts had observed a “reluctance” to raise prices as consumers appeared to have grown more sensitive to prices, but other districts reported “solid demand” allowed companies to maintain prices and profitability.
That’s likely why companies and analysts have become less concerned about price elasticity. Based on a FactSet analysis, mentions of the word “elasticity” in press releases and conference calls of S&P 500 companies
SPX
increased as inflation and interest rates started surging in early 2022 through the end of the year.
With inflation trends softening this year, the Fed took a brief pause in raising rates in June, helping fuel further stock-market gains, before raising rates again in July.
FactSet
As the chart shows, “elasticity” popped up in more than 55% of earnings releases and conference calls in mid-2022, but with the second-quarter 2023 earnings-reporting season more than half over, mentions had dropped to about 20%.
Perhaps that will pick up, as retailers, especially those catering to lower-income customers — recall the PepsiCo comment — assess the demand impact of continued price increases.
Meanwhile, the branded-foods company Conagra Brands Inc.
CAG,
whose wide-ranging food brands including Birds Eye, Duncan Hines, Hunt’s, Orville Redenbacher’s and Slim Jim, were starting to see the emergence of a different dynamic.
Chief Executive Sean Connolly said consumers were shifting behavior in some categories as prices remained high. Rather than trade down to lower-priced alternatives, he noticed some consumers buying fewer items overall, “more of a hunkering down than a trading down.”
That’s exactly the kind of consumer behavior that is needed, if companies are to stop feeding into the greedflation phenomenon and to start pulling back on prices.
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Icahn Enterprises Inc.’s bonds saw better buying on Friday, after Carl Icahn’s investing arm announced it was halving its quarterly distribution, a move that disappointed unit holders but is positive for its bonds.
Bondholders are typically focused on making sure a company can make its interest payments and repay the principal when a bond matures.
The company said it would now make a distribution of $1, down from $2 previously. The news came as the company posted a surprise loss for the second quarter and a $1 billion decline in revenue.
Icahn placed the blame for the fund’s poor performance on Hindenburg Research, the short seller that published a report about IEP on May 2, accusing it of overstating asset values. Hindenburg also revealed that Icahn himself had borrowed from the company, among other issues.
For more, see: Icahn Enterprises’ stock slides 30% after company halves quarterly distribution to $1 per unit
The stock promptly tumbled and was last down 24%, putting it on track for its biggest one-day selloff since it went public 36 years ago. The next biggest drop was 20.0% on May 2, when the Hindenburg Research report was released.
As the chart below from data-as-a-service provider BondCliQ Media Services shows buyers emerging after 8:00 a.m. Eastern, immediately after the news was announced. By midmorning, some sellers had emerged.
The following table shows there was net buying over the last 10 days, focused on the 6.35% notes that mature in 2026.
In a letter to unit holders accompanying the results, Icahn acknowledged missteps in the past several years as the company has shifted away from its core activist strategy and shorted far more than was necessary.
“While we made money on the long side through our activism efforts, our returns have been overwhelmed by our overly bearish view of the market and related oversized short (hedge) positions,” Icahn wrote. “Over the past six months, we have significantly reduced our hedges. Going forward, we intend to stick to our knitting and focus on our activist strategy while remaining appropriately hedged.”
For more, see: Carl Icahn admits he was wrong to take a huge short position on the market that lost $9 billion
Activism is the best investment paradigm because “there is no accountability in Corporate America,” he wrote.
With many exceptions, “most CEOs are incapable of creating great businesses (or even improving them) and the desire to empire build is rampant. “
Many are not the best person for the job or even the most talented individual in the organization, he continued. Far too often, they have climbed through the ranks by being agreeable and presenting no threat to their superiors.
“Those CEOs are generally too busy playing at the proverbial country club to realize what improvements can be made or what hidden jewels can be unlocked,” he said.
CEOs are hard to unseat, as they can pack a board with loyal cronies and use company funds to defend against an activist campaign by hiring expensive legal and financial experts, further depleting the coffers.
Icahn has himself waged endless activist campaigns against companies and their management teams, and most recently succeeded in his effort to shake up management at gene sequencing test maker Illumina Inc.
ILMN,
as the Associated Press reported.
Past activist campaigns by Icahn’s company have generated billions of dollars for shareholders and helped boards and CEOs capture untapped value, Icahn has argued, citing Reynolds, Netflix
NFLX,
Forest Labs, Apple
AAPL,
CVR Energy
CVI,
Herbalife
HLF,
eBay
EBAY,
Tropicana, Cheniere
LNG,
and Occidental
OXY,
as examples.
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The second-quarter earnings season so far is showing that one trend that featured in the first quarter has not gone away.
“Greedflation,” or the practice of companies raising prices to protect their profit margins, is alive and well, based on the number of companies that have so far acknowledged raising prices yet again, even as inflation readings have come down and as some acknowledge that their input costs are falling.
At the same time, companies continue to emphasize on earnings calls that their customers are showing signs they are weary of higher prices and are shopping more frequently at more stores, while spending less per trip.
See: Consumers are shopping in more stores than ever before to save money
“Across industries, we’ve seen the same story over and over the last two years,” said Liz Zelnick, director of economic security and corporate power at Accountable.US, a liberal-leaning consumer-advocacy group.
“CEOs claim outside forces made them gouge consumers, then turn around and give themselves raises and boast of record profits and billions in new investor handouts,” she said, referring to the billions of stock buybacks and dividend payouts the same companies have made.
See: U.S. inflation slows again, CPI shows, as Fed weighs another rate hike
Also read: U.S. wholesale inflation slows to a crawl, PPI shows
Procter & Gamble Co.
PG,
for example, said it raised prices by up to 9% in its latest quarter, after raising them up to 10% the previous quarter and up to 10% in the same quarter in 2022.
On a call with analysts, Chief Executive Jon Moeller signaled more price increases to come, which he attributed to the company’s innovation pipeline, which is creating must-have products.
“If you look back historically, pricing has been a positive contributor to our top-line growth for something like 48 out of the 51 last quarters and again as we strengthen our innovation program even further, that will provide opportunities to continue to benefit from modest pricing,” said Moeller, according to a FactSet transcript.
See also: Colgate to keep raising prices as inflation slows to boost margins and profit
The company blew past earnings estimates with adjusted per-share earnings of $1.37, ahead of the $1.32 FactSet consensus, and sales of $20.6 billion, versus the $20 billion FactSet consensus.
Gross margin increased 380 basis points from a year ago, driven by 340 basis points of pricing benefit and 290 basis points of productivity savings.
Coca-Cola Co.
KO,
also swept past estimates and raised guidance after the drinks and snacks giant increased prices by 10%. The company’s adjusted operating margin rose to 31.6% from 30.6% a year ago.
Conagra Brands Inc.
CAG,
raised prices by up to 17%, which Chief Executive Sean Connolly described as “inflation-justified.” The parent of brands such as Birds Eye, Duncan Hines, Hunt’s, Orville Redenbacher’s and Slim Jim also reported that its customers are buying less food to stretch their budgets.
For more, see: Consumers are now ‘hunkering down’ rather than ‘trading down’ on groceries, Conagra says
Oreo cookie maker Mondelez International Inc.
MDLZ,
raised prices in North America by 10.4 percentage points in the second quarter and raised prices for all developed markets by 12.4 percentage points. That’s after raising North America prices by 15 percentage points and prices in developed markets by 13.4 percentage points in the first quarter.
The company’s second-quarter gross margins expanded by 3.1 percentage points to 39.4%. Revenues rose 17%, while volumes were flat.
At Campbell Soup Co.
CPB,
sales for its fiscal third quarter were up 5%, led by “favorable net price realization,” as the company disclosed as the very first bullet point in its release. Campbell raised prices of meals and beverages by 9% and if snacks by 15%, after raising them by 15% and 13%, respectively, in the second quarter.
However, volumes were down in the third quarter as shoppers proved sensitive to higher prices.
Kraft Heinz Co.
KHC,
on Tuesday said it too has lost business because it raised prices more than its competitors, but it’s not planning to cut prices to try to get those customers back anytime soon.
“[W]hile we did lose share in the quarter, as price gaps have stayed wider for longer than we would have liked, we are managing the business for the long term and still generated mid-single-digit top-line growth within the range of what we expected,” Chief Executive Miguel Patricio said.
The company, parent to brands including Kraft Mac and Cheese, Heinz Ketchup, Jell-O and Lunchables, indicated on the post-earnings conference call with analysts that rather than increasing discounting, or just cutting prices, it will remain focused on protecting margins, which has been allowing it to accelerate investment in the business, particularly in marketing, research and development and technology.
Besides, as Chief Financial Officer Andre Maciel said, the gaps between Kraft’s prices and those of competitors are not getting worse. “If anything, they are slightly getting better,” Maciel said, according to an AlphaSense transcript.
Considering the market-share losses and with inflation coming down, “do you think you took too much price, given you said you took price ahead of competitors, and they have not followed?” UBS analyst Cody Ross asked on the conference call.
CEO Miguel Patricio’s answer was simple: “No.”
“I mean, we had very high inflation. And we are leaders in the vast majority of categories where we play. And it’s our role as leader to try to compensate … this inflation with price increases,” Patricio said. “So I would do everything again. I mean we can always go back on price if we think we have to or when we have to. But we had to lead price increases.”
All of that leaves families to foot the bill for higher food prices, said Accountable.US’s Zelnick.
The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund
XLP
has gained 1.2% in the year to date, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF
XRT
has gained 10.3%. The S&P 500
XRT
has gained 17%.
Tomi Kilgore contributed.
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Icahn Enterprises L.P.’s stock tumbled 30% on Friday, after the company said it’s cutting its quarterly distribution to $1 from $2 previously.
The company
IEP,
made the announcement as it reported a surprise quarterly loss with Chairman Carl Icahn, the billionaire activist investor, blaming the news squarely on one thing.
“I believe the second quarter partially reflected the impact of short selling on companies we control or invest in, which I attribute to the misleading and self-serving Hindenburg report concerning our company, “Icahn said in a statement.
“It also reflected the size of the hedge book relative to our activist strategy.”
Icahn was referring to a report by short seller Hindenburg Research published on May 2 that accused IEP, Icahn’s publicly traded investing arm, of overstating asset values. Hindenburg also revealed that Icahn himself had borrowed from the company, among other issues.
That had been disclosed in a footnote to financials that Wall Street had overlooked.
Read: What we know about Carl Icahn’s margin loan
The report shaved billions off IEP’s market cap and was firmly rebutted by Icahn, who recently said he has finalized amended loan agreements with banks that untie his personal loans from the trading price of his company’s shares.
Icahn said IEP has paid out distributions for 73 continuous quarters and does not intend for a “misleading” report to interfere with that practice.
“The payment of future distributions will be determined by the board of directors quarterly, based upon current economic conditions and business performance and other factors that it deems relevant at the time that declaration of a distribution is considered,” said Icahn.
On a call with analysts, IEP’s Chief Executive David Willetts highlighted the long-term “lumpiness” of the business, given its many moving parts.
“We have large wins at times and we have volatility, we’re not a company that necessarily has predictable cash flow, there are no guarantees,” he told analysts.
But IEP is not changing its strategy on distributions, he added.
The stock was headed for the biggest one-day selloff since it went public 36 years ago. The next biggest drop was 20.0% on May 2, when the Hindenburg Research report was released.
The company, which is 84% owned by Icahn and his son, Brett, offers exposure to Icahn’s personal portfolio of public and private companies, including petroleum refineries, car-parts makers, food-packaging companies and real estate. Its unit holders are mostly retail investors.
The fund has performed poorly in the past decade. For many years Icahn has publicly expressed suspicion of the bull market that raged around him. He shorted the stock market in a big way as a hedge against his long activist positions. Going into 2021, for example, Icahn’s investment fund had a short exposure of 142%, SEC filings show.
For more, see: Carl Icahn admits he was wrong to take a huge short position on the market that lost $9 billion
Hindenburg, the short selling firm founded by Nate Anderson, took a victory lap on Elon Musk’s X platform, the renamed Twitter, noting that it had predicted that IEP’s poor investment performance would eventually force it to cut the distribution.
Icahn has himself waged endless activist campaigns against companies and their management teams, and most recently succeeded in his effort to shake up management at gene sequencing test maker Illumina Inc.
ILMN,
In June, that company accepted the resignation of its Chief Executive and director, Francis DeSouza, ending a monthslong heated battle over its $7.1 billion acquisition of cancer test maker Grail that has faced regulatory hurdles, as the Associated Press reported.
Icahn had urged shareholders to vote out its chairman, John Thompson, and DeSouza. Company shareholders voted out Thompson in late May.
Past activist campaigns by Icahn’s company have generated billions of dollars for shareholders and helped boards and CEOs capture untapped value, Icahn has argued, citing Reynolds, Netflix
NFLX,
Forest Labs, Apple
AAPL,
CVR Energy
CVI,
Herbalife
HLF,
eBay
EBAY,
Tropicana, Cheniere
LNG,
and Occidental
OXY,
as examples.
IEP said it had a loss of $269 million, or 72 cents per depositary unit, for the second quarter, wider than the loss of $128 million, or 41 cents per depositary unit, posted in the year-earlier period.
Revenue fell to $2.684 billion from $3.796 billion.
The FactSet consensus was for income of 25 cents per depositary unit and revenue of $2.657 billion.
Meanwhile, investors are waiting to see the outcome of a federal probe of IEP’s corporate governance and other issues, which was disclosed along with first-quarter earnings.
IEP’s stock is down 35% in the year to date, while the S&P 500
SPX
has gained 18%.
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The second-quarter earnings season so far is showing that one trend that featured in the first quarter has not gone away.
“Greedflation,” or the practice of companies raising prices to protect their profit margins, is alive and well, based on the number of companies that have so far acknowledged raising prices yet again, even as inflation readings have come down and as some acknowledge that their input costs are falling.
At the same time, companies continue to emphasize on earnings calls that their customers are showing signs they are weary of higher prices and are shopping more frequently at more stores, while spending less per trip.
See: Consumers are shopping in more stores than ever before to save money
“Across industries, we’ve seen the same story over and over the last two years,” said Liz Zelnick, director of economic security and corporate power at Accountable.US, a liberal-leaning consumer-advocacy group.
“CEOs claim outside forces made them gouge consumers, then turn around and give themselves raises and boast of record profits and billions in new investor handouts,” she said, referring to the billions of stock buybacks and dividend payouts the same companies have made.
See: U.S. inflation slows again, CPI shows, as Fed weighs another rate hike
Also read: U.S. wholesale inflation slows to a crawl, PPI shows
Procter & Gamble Co.
PG,
for example, said it raised prices by up to 9% in its latest quarter, after raising them up to 10% the previous quarter and up to 10% in the same quarter in 2022.
On a call with analysts, Chief Executive Jon Moeller signaled more price increases to come, which he attributed to the company’s innovation pipeline, which is creating must-have products.
“If you look back historically, pricing has been a positive contributor to our top-line growth for something like 48 out of the 51 last quarters and again as we strengthen our innovation program even further, that will provide opportunities to continue to benefit from modest pricing,” said Moeller, according to a FactSet transcript.
See also: Colgate to keep raising prices as inflation slows to boost margins and profit
The company blew past earnings estimates with adjusted per-share earnings of $1.37, ahead of the $1.32 FactSet consensus, and sales of $20.6 billion, versus the $20 billion FactSet consensus.
Gross margin increased 380 basis points from a year ago, driven by 340 basis points of pricing benefit and 290 basis points of productivity savings.
Coca-Cola Co.
KO,
also swept past estimates and raised guidance after the drinks and snacks giant increased prices by 10%. The company’s adjusted operating margin rose to 31.6% from 30.6% a year ago.
Conagra Brands Inc.
CAG,
raised prices by up to 17%, which Chief Executive Sean Connolly described as “inflation-justified.” The parent of brands such as Birds Eye, Duncan Hines, Hunt’s, Orville Redenbacher’s and Slim Jim also reported that its customers are buying less food to stretch their budgets.
For more, see: Consumers are now ‘hunkering down’ rather than ‘trading down’ on groceries, Conagra says
Oreo cookie maker Mondelez International Inc.
MDLZ,
raised prices in North America by 10.4 percentage points in the second quarter and raised prices for all developed markets by 12.4 percentage points. That’s after raising North America prices by 15 percentage points and prices in developed markets by 13.4 percentage points in the first quarter.
The company’s second-quarter gross margins expanded by 3.1 percentage points to 39.4%. Revenues rose 17%, while volumes were flat.
At Campbell Soup Co.
CPB,
sales for its fiscal third quarter were up 5%, led by “favorable net price realization,” as the company disclosed as the very first bullet point in its release. Campbell raised prices of meals and beverages by 9% and if snacks by 15%, after raising them by 15% and 13%, respectively, in the second quarter.
However, volumes were down in the third quarter as shoppers proved sensitive to higher prices.
Kraft Heinz Co.
KHC,
on Tuesday said it too has lost business because it raised prices more than its competitors, but it’s not planning to cut prices to try to get those customers back anytime soon.
“[W]hile we did lose share in the quarter, as price gaps have stayed wider for longer than we would have liked, we are managing the business for the long term and still generated mid-single-digit top-line growth within the range of what we expected,” Chief Executive Miguel Patricio said.
The company, parent to brands including Kraft Mac and Cheese, Heinz Ketchup, Jell-O and Lunchables, indicated on the post-earnings conference call with analysts that rather than increasing discounting, or just cutting prices, it will remain focused on protecting margins, which has been allowing it to accelerate investment in the business, particularly in marketing, research and development and technology.
Besides, as Chief Financial Officer Andre Maciel said, the gaps between Kraft’s prices and those of competitors are not getting worse. “If anything, they are slightly getting better,” Maciel said, according to an AlphaSense transcript.
Considering the market-share losses and with inflation coming down, “do you think you took too much price, given you said you took price ahead of competitors, and they have not followed?” UBS analyst Cody Ross asked on the conference call.
CEO Miguel Patricio’s answer was simple: “No.”
“I mean, we had very high inflation. And we are leaders in the vast majority of categories where we play. And it’s our role as leader to try to compensate … this inflation with price increases,” Patricio said. “So I would do everything again. I mean we can always go back on price if we think we have to or when we have to. But we had to lead price increases.”
All of that leaves families to foot the bill for higher food prices, said Accountable.US’s Zelnick.
The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund
XLP
has gained 1.2% in the year to date, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF
XRT
has gained 10.3%. The S&P 500
XRT
has gained 17%.
Tomi Kilgore contributed.
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U.S. stock futures stumbled Wednesday after markets were rattled by a downgrade to the U.S. government’s credit rating.
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
rose 71 points, or 0.2%, to 35631, the S&P 500
SPX
declined 12 points, or 0.27%, to 4577, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
dropped 62 points, or 0.43%, to 14284.
Equity-index futures are succumbing to a broad risk off tone across markets after rating agency Fitch downgraded the U.S.’s credit rating from AAA to AA+, citing “expected fiscal deterioration” and an “erosion of governance”.
Fitch’s move follows a similar downgrade by S&P more than a decade ago. The U.S. Treasury market acts as a global benchmark upon which many financial products are based and so uncertainty about its stability can cause anxiety for investors.
The news found a stock market arguably vulnerable to unwelcome surprises, with the S&P 500 having already gained 19.2% this year and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite up 36.5%.
The CBOE VIX Index , an option-based gauge of expected S&P 500 volatility, jumped 16% to 16.2, its highest in nearly four weeks.
Traditional perceived havens saw demand, with the Japanese yen
USDJPY,
gaining 0.7%, gold
GC00,
nudging up to $1,950 an ounce, and benchmark German government bond yields
BX:TMBMKDE-10Y
moving lower. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
were little changed at 4.03%.
However, most analysts did not see the downgrade causing the stock market much long term damage.
“While debt downgrades seldom, if ever, have long legs, investors may pause and let the dust settle before re-entering risk markets. However, within this super market-friendly environment of stable growth and a Fed close to the end of its hiking cycle creating fertile ground for stock gains, its unlikely risk sentiment will wander too far off the soft landing path,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner of SPI Asset Management.
Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said “the market remains sensitive as the final throes of earnings season rumble on, but 82% of S&P 500 companies that have reported results so far have surprised to the upside, offering a bit of a sentiment buffer.”
Earnings results due Wednesday include CVS Health
CVS,
Humana
HUM,
and Carlyle Group
CG,
before the opening bell, followed after the close by PayPal
PYPL,
Shopify
SHOP,
and Qualcomm
QCOM,
U.S. economic updates set for release on Wednesday include the ADP employment report at 8:15 a.m. Eastern.
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When Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. report quarterly results on Thursday, we’ll get a look at two big companies, with big expectations, trying to do smaller things — or at least less exciting things, or things that might be more inconveniencing to customers — to stay bigger.
For Apple
AAPL,
D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte said, the focus will be on the iPhone, as always, as well as demand abroad and a new VR headset, as its stock hovers near record highs and its market value holds above $3 trillion. And he said that Amazon
AMZN,
meanwhile, could face questions about the impact of cost cuts on e-commerce growth, and what AI could do to boost slower growth in its cloud business.
The results from those companies, which are big enough to make or break a single quarter’s worth for the S&P 500 Index
SPX,
will follow those from the other tech giants like Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
and Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
And they’ll arrive as Wall Street starts to get a tad more realistic about AI: Microsoft shares fell after management said the expansion of its AI capabilities would be “gradual” — and gradually more expensive.
D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte, in a research note this month, said Amazon, like other big tech companies, was taking more steps to control its costs. That might help margins, he said. But he said he’d be watching for any impact to e-commerce sales growth, following thousands of layoffs and pulling back on its expansion of Amazon Fresh.
Amazon began tacking on servicing fees onto some Amazon Fresh delivery orders this year. And Forte noted what he said were other tweaks to service: Charging for a home pickup of a defective smoke alarm that used to be free, and incentives to wait longer during Prime Day.
“In our view, Amazon is playing a ‘game of chicken’ and banking on other e-commerce companies not to offer a superior service, instead of its historical approach of working backwards with a customer-obsessed approach,” D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte said in a research note.
He added later: “We believe there is something to be said about the experience of having an Amazon-branded delivery vehicle show up at your house EVERY day. Having one show up once a week or twice is not the same.”
At Apple, Forte said in a separate note, the iPhone, whose sales were still solid, had turned into more of a consumer staple than a discretionary buy. He also said he’d be looking for more detail about the upcoming iPhone 15 — likely to be modestly fancier than previous iPhones — the recovery in China and growth in India. Apple last month also unveiled its Vision Pro VR headset — for $3,499. Forte said he had his doubts.
“We believe Apple will have to overcome a number of structural challenges to achieve mass adoption for its AR/VR headset,” he said.
Apple and Amazon will report as more companies than normal report quarterly profit ahead of estimates, according to a FactSet report on Friday. For the week ahead, 170 S&P 500 companies report results, with four from the Dow, the repot said.
Results from Uber Technologies Inc.
UBER,
and DoorDash Inc.
DASH,
will offer an update on the gig economy and how far app-based deliveries can go, while results from Kraft Heinz Inc.
KHC,
will offer an update on food prices and how much they might ease from the highs seen in recent months.
With the “Barbie” movie lifting rival Mattel Inc.
MAT,
results from Hasbro Inc
HAS,
during the week will offer a glance at the rest of the toy industry, where demand hasn’t exactly been great, and what entertainment options Hasbro has up its sleeve to keep apace with its archrival. Drug maker Pfizer Inc.
PFE,
reports, as does video-game maker Electronic Arts Inc.
EA,
Starbucks Corp.
SBUX,
reports as well.
“Barbie,” the Hollywood strike and Warner Bros. Discovery: Mattel has said it wants to turn “Barbie” into a content franchise. Now we’ll hear what Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.
WBD,
the media conglomerate that produced the film, thinks about the film’s results and its prospects, as studios increasingly pump out sequels or offshoots of well-known, established character universes like “Star Wars,” Marvel and DC. The company — which reports oversees Warner Bros. CNN, TNT and the streaming service Max — reports quarterly results on Thursday. But even as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” carry the parts of the entertainment industry that are still functioning through the Hollywood strike, Wall Street will likely be focused on contingency plans, and any sense of whether more viewers are turning to streaming with productions on pause.
Payments and crypto volumes: Results this week from trading app Robinhood Markets Inc.
HOOD,
and crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc.
COIN,
along with PayPal Holdings Inc.
PYPL,
and Block
SQ,
will land at the intersection of rebounding markets and job-market concerns.
UBS analysts predicted solid growth and cost control for Block, and “steady” e-commerce trends for PayPal. But BofA analysts said PayPal’s search for a new chief executive, following the announcement of Dan Schulman’s retirement at the end of the year, would become more important, adding that “we think investors should rightfully expect the CEO search to conclude in the near-term.” While Bitcoin’s rebound helped Coinbase, the company and others in the industry face the prospect of tougher regulations. Robinhood and PayPal report on Wednesday. Coinbase and Block report on Thursday.
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These reports, excerpted and edited by Barron’s, were issued recently by investment and research firms. The reports are a sampling of analysts’ thinking; they should not be considered the views or recommendations of Barron’s. Some of the reports’ issuers have provided, or hope to provide, investment-banking or other services to the companies being analyzed.
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Stock futures were falling following three straight days of losses for Wall Street. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell again will be delivering testimony before Congress. His comments on Wednesday that the central bank likely would be raising rates further this year pushed markets lower.
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Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Real estate investment trusts have had a tough couple of years, but opportunities abound—if you know where to look.
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PacWest Bancorp.’s stock jumped 3% premarket Monday, after the bank announced asset sales that would allow it to focus on its core community banking business.
The regional bank
PACW,
said it has entered an agreement to sell a portfolio of 74 real estate construction loans with a principal balance of about $2.6 billion to a unit of real-estate investment company Kennedy Wilson Holdings.
“Kennedy Wilson or its designees will also assume all remaining future funding obligations under the acquired loans of approximately $2.7 billion,” PacWest said in a regulatory filing.
The bank has also agreed to sell an additional six real estate construction loans to Kennedy Wilson with a principal balance of about $363 million.
The sale of the loans is subject to Kennedy Wilson’s satisfactory due diligence. The company will place $20 million into a third-party escrow account that will be refundable.
The deal is expected to close in several tranches in the second and third quarters. “There can be no assurance that the transaction will be completed in part or at all,” said the filing.
See also: FDIC set to levy big banks to pay for $15.8 billion bailout of Silicon Valley, Signature Banks
PacWest shares are down 75% in the year to date, after being caught up in the regional-bank stock rout that followed the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March.
The bank said it lost 9.5% of deposits during the week ending May 5 amid market volatility following JPMorgan’s
JPM,
rescue of First Republic Bank.
See: Here’s why people are still worried about regional banks and commercial real estate
Other regional banks were also rising premarket. Western Alliance Bancorp. was up 0.4% and KeyCorp. was up 1.7%.
The S&P 500
SPX,
has gained 9% in the year to date.
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Things move quickly in the world of artificial intelligence. It is easy to sit back and complain about developments that could be disruptive, but sometimes investors are best served by putting emotions aside and observing new developments and how they affect markets. Could AI developments and related trends make you a lot of money?
Below is a new screen showing a group of AI-oriented companies expected to increase their sales most rapidly through 2025, based on consensus estimates among analysts polled by FactSet. Then we show expected revenue growth rates for the largest AI-oriented companies in the screen.
Over the long haul, many businesses might perform more efficiently by employing AI. Maybe this technology can create an economic revolution similar to the one that moved the majority of the working population away from agricultural labor during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Back in February, we screened 96 stocks held by five exchange-traded funds focused on AI and related industries and listed the 20 that analysts thought would rise the most over the following 12 months.
Three months is a long time for AI, and the shakeout hasn’t even started.
Read: Congress and tech seem open to regulating AI efforts, but that doesn’t mean it will happen
There is no way to predict how politicians will react to perceived or real threats of AI and machine learning. And the largest U.S. tech players are doing everything they can to employ the new technology and remain dominant. But that doesn’t mean they will grow more quickly than smaller AI-focused players.
Once again we will begin a screen with these five ETFs:
Altogether and removing duplicates, the five ETFs hold 270 stocks of companies in 23 countries. We first narrowed the list to 197 covered by at least nine analysts and for which consensus sales estimates are available through calendar 2025. We used calendar-year estimates because some companies have fiscal years that don’t match the calendar.
Here are the 20 screened AI-related companies expected by analysts to have the highest compound annual growth rates (CAGR) for sales from 2023 through 2025. Sales estimates are in millions of U.S. dollars. The list also shows which of the above five ETFs holds each stocks.
| Company | Ticker | Estimated sales – 2023 ($mil) | Estimated sales – 2024 ($mil) | Estimated sales – 2025 ($mil) | Two-year estimated sales CAGR through 2025 | Held by |
| BioXcel Therapeutics Inc. |
BTAI, |
$5 | $39 | $121 | 411.5% | WTAI |
| Luminar Technologies Inc. Class A |
LAZR, |
$86 | $266 | $588 | 161.0% | ROBT, WTAI |
| BlackBerry Ltd. |
BB, |
$685 | $769 | $1,925 | 67.6% | ROBT |
| Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. |
CRDO, |
$183 | $259 | $363 | 40.9% | IRBO |
| SentinelOne Inc. Class A |
S, |
$619 | $881 | $1,176 | 37.9% | WTAI |
| Wolfspeed Inc. |
WOLF, |
$982 | $1,323 | $1,860 | 37.6% | WTAI |
| SK hynix Inc. |
000660, |
$18,319 | $27,899 | $34,542 | 37.3% | WTAI |
| Mobileye Global Inc. Class A |
MBLY, |
$2,109 | $2,782 | $3,920 | 36.3% | ROBT, WTAI |
| Snowflake Inc. Class A |
SNOW, |
$2,811 | $3,863 | $5,139 | 35.2% | IRBO, THNQ, WTAI |
| Lemonade Inc. |
LMND, |
$395 | $471 | $712 | 34.2% | THNQ, WTAI |
| Nio Inc. ADR Class A |
NIO, |
$11,874 | $16,733 | $21,304 | 33.9% | ROBT |
| Stem Inc. |
STEM, |
$607 | $833 | $1,055 | 31.8% | WTAI |
| Upstart Holdings Inc. |
UPST, |
$547 | $768 | $938 | 31.0% | BOTZ, WTAI |
| Cloudflare Inc. Class A |
NET, |
$1,284 | $1,669 | $2,194 | 30.7% | THNQ |
| Samsara Inc. Class A |
IOT, |
$830 | $1,062 | $1,364 | 28.2% | THNQ |
| Ambarella Inc. |
AMBA, |
$287 | $355 | $472 | 28.2% | IRBO, ROBT, THNQ, WTAI |
| iflytek Co. Ltd. Class A |
002230, |
$3,561 | $4,582 | $5,851 | 28.2% | THNQ |
| Tesla Inc. |
TSLA, |
$99,558 | $128,412 | $161,061 | 27.2% | ROBT, THNQ, WTAI |
| CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. Class A |
CRWD, |
$2,935 | $3,793 | $4,739 | 27.1% | THNQ, WTAI |
| PB Fintech Ltd. |
543390, |
$358 | $462 | $573 | 26.5% | IRBO |
| Source: FactSet | ||||||
Click the tickers for more about each company or ETF.
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information for free on the MarketWatch quote pages.
We have screened for expected revenue growth, rather than for earnings or cash flow, because in a newer tech-oriented business area, investors are most likely to consider the top line as companies sacrifice profits to build market share.
It is important to do your own research if you consider purchasing any individual stock, to form your own opinion about a company’s ability to remain competitive over the long term. Starting from the top of the list, BioXcel Therapeutics Inc.
BTAI,
is expected to show exponential sales growth, but that is from a low expected baseline this year.
What about the largest AI-related companies held by these ETFs?
Here are the largest 20 companies in the screen by market capitalization, ranked by expected sales CAGR from 2022 through 2025. Once again the sales estimates are in millions of U.S. dollars, but the market caps are in billions.
| Company | Ticker | Estimated sales – 2023 ($mil) | Estimated sales – 2024 ($mil) | Estimated sales – 2025 $mil) | Two-year estimated sales CAGR through 2025 | Market Cap ($bil) | Held by |
| Tesla Inc. |
TSLA, |
$99,558 | $128,412 | $161,061 | 27.2% | $528 | ROBT, THNQ, WTAI |
| Nvidia Corp. |
NVDA, |
$29,839 | $36,877 | $46,154 | 24.4% | $722 | BOTZ, IRBO, ROBT, THNQ, WTAI |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. ADR |
TSM, |
$71,434 | $86,284 | $101,112 | 19.0% | $445 | ROBT, WTAI |
| Advanced Micro Devices Inc. |
AMD, |
$22,976 | $26,823 | $30,359 | 15.0% | $163 | IRBO, ROBT, THNQ, WTAI |
| ASML Holding NV ADR |
ASML, |
$28,974 | $32,374 | $37,796 | 14.2% | $263 | THNQ, WTAI |
| Microsoft Corp. |
MSFT, |
$223,438 | $251,028 | $282,397 | 12.4% | $2,318 | IRBO, ROBT, THNQ, WTAI |
| Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. |
005930, |
$200,595 | $227,286 | $252,129 | 12.1% | $292 | IRBO, WTAI |
| Amazon.com Inc. |
AMZN, |
$559,438 | $626,549 | $702,395 | 12.1% | $1,164 | IRBO, ROBT, THNQ, WTAI |
| Adobe Inc. |
ADBE, |
$19,470 | $21,784 | $24,276 | 11.7% | $158 | IRBO, THNQ |
| Netflix Inc. |
NFLX, |
$33,915 | $38,067 | $42,275 | 11.6% | $148 | IRBO, THNQ |
| Tencent Holdings Ltd. |
700, |
$88,727 | $99,212 | $110,556 | 11.6% | $422 | IRBO, ROBT |
| Salesforce Inc. |
CRM, |
$34,392 | $38,273 | $42,786 | 11.5% | $205 | IRBO, THNQ |
| Alphabet Inc. Class A |
GOOGL, |
$299,810 | $333,077 | $369,195 | 11.0% | $710 | IRBO, ROBT, THNQ, WTAI |
| Intel Corp. |
INTC, |
$51,060 | $57,799 | $62,675 | 10.8% | $122 | IRBO, ROBT |
| Meta Platforms Inc. Class A |
META, |
$125,901 | $139,545 | $154,259 | 10.7% | $528 | IRBO, WTAI |
| Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. ADR |
BABA, |
$134,140 | $148,206 | $162,199 | 10.0% | $235 | ROBT, THNQ |
| Texas Instruments Inc. |
TXN, |
$17,941 | $19,433 | $20,799 | 7.7% | $148 | IRBO |
| Apple Inc. |
AAPL, |
$390,845 | $416,761 | $445,956 | 6.8% | $2,706 | IRBO, WTAI |
| Siemens Aktiengesellschaft |
SIE, |
$84,681 | $89,145 | $93,925 | 5.3% | $130 | ROBT |
| Johnson & Johnson |
JNJ, |
$98,761 | $100,990 | $103,870 | 2.6% | $414 | ROBT |
| Source: FactSet | |||||||
Tech-stock picks that are small and focused: This fund invests in unsung innovators. Here are 2 top choices.
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When investors think of technology stocks, they might automatically gravitate toward “the next big thing,” or to the giant companies that dominate the S&P 500
SPX,
But Robert Stimson, chief investment officer of Oak Associates Funds, makes a case for diversification through exposure to smaller innovators which he believes are “overlooked in this environment.”
The River Oak Discovery Fund
RIVSX,
invests in tech-oriented companies with market capitalizations of $5 billion or less, with an average of about $2 billion. It has a five-star rating, the highest, from Morningstar, despite having what the investment information firm considers “above average” annual expenses of 1.19% of assets under management. The fund is ranked in the 6th percentile among 546 funds in Morningstar’s “Small Blend” category for five-year performance and in the 13th percentile among 374 funds for 10-year performance. The performance comparisons are net of expenses.
The Black Oak Emerging Technologies Fund
BOGSX,
has more of a midcap focus, with some small-cap stocks and follows a similar strategy to that of RIVSX. But with no restriction on the size of companies this fund invests in, “we don’t have to sell stocks,” Stimpson said. So long-term holdings of this fund include Apple Inc.
AAPL,
and Salesforce.com Inc.
CRM,
This fund is rated three stars within Morningstar’s “Technology” category and has a lower expense ratio of 1.03%.
Both funds are concentrated. The River Oak Discovery Fund held 34 stocks and the Black Oak Emerging Technologies Fund held 35 stocks as of March 31. Lists of both funds’ largest holdings are below.
During an Interview, Stimpson, who co-manages both funds, said that when investing in the small-cap technology space, he and colleagues identify companies that are “focused on niches.
“I want a company that knows who they are, what they do and do it well, rather than a small company trying to growing into the next Microsoft, Google or Salesforce,” he said.
More about giant companies dominating stock indexes: This twist on a traditional S&P 500 stock fund can lower your risk and still beat the market overall
Stimpson said Oak Associates pays close attention to what corporate management teams say during earnings calls and in presentations, preferring comments related to improving sales and operations with a market niche, rather than expressions of grand visions for exponential growth.
That type of narrow focus can support higher valuations over time, Stimpson said. “They have better execution, a better ability to fend-off competition and they are quality acquisition candidates.”
“ “I caution everyone that until there is revenue, earnings and a product, the hype can be more dangerous than an opportunity.” ”
All of those factors can be important to investors, considering how easily tech giants such as Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
or Google holding company Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
GOOG,
can begin to compete with smaller innovative companies because they can afford to make such large investments, he said.
Simpson went further, saying that when running screens for “quality” metrics, such as improving free cash flow yields, the Oak Associates team also looks for “shareholder friendly practices.” For example, a company may be repurchasing shares. But are the buybacks lowering the share count significantly (which boosts earnings per share) or are they merely mitigating the dilution caused by the shoveling of new shares to executives as part of their compensation?
Finally, Simpson cautioned investors not to get caught up in tech-focused hype.
“When I talk to our clients, I get questions about AI and ChatGPT and how to play it. People get focused on a new great tech innovation,” he said. “You can replace ChatGPT with bitcoin, metaverse or 3-D printing.”
“I caution everyone that until there is revenue, earnings and a product, the hype can be more dangerous than an opportunity.”
These companies are held by theRiver Oak Discovery Fund and the Black Oak Emerging Technologies Fund.
Cirrus Logic Inc.
CRUS,
is the largest holding of the River Oak Discovery Fund. Stimpson calls the company “a derivative play on the success of Apple.”
“They are focused on the chips that go into mobile and [vehicles],” as well as the needs of their customers, including Apple, “rather than problem areas of the chip sector, such as memory or PCs. They are not talking about chips for AI, for example,” Stimpson said.
Cirrus focuses on systems and related software used in audio systems..
Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc.
KLIC,
makes equipment, tools and related software used by a variety of manufacturers of computer chips and integrated electronic devices.
Stimpson likes the company as a long-term play on the worldwide disruption in semiconductor manufacturing and supply, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. “All chip companies learned that any supply disruption in Southeast Asia is a problem. Over time, the opportunities for semiconductor equipment makers are very good. There will be more plants in more locations, so more equipment,” he said.
He said KLICK was in a “protected” position, with returns on equity of about 20% and free cash flow yields of about 10%.
Here are the largest 10 holdings of the River Oak Discovery Fund as of March 31:
| Company | Ticker | % of portfolio |
| Cirrus Logic Inc. |
CRUS, |
4.9% |
| Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. |
KLIC, |
4.6% |
| Advanced Energy Industries Inc. |
AEIS, |
4.5% |
| Cohu Inc. |
COHU, |
3.7% |
| Asbury Automotive Group Inc. |
ABG, |
3.7% |
| Korn Ferry |
KFY, |
3.6% |
| Kforce Inc. |
KFRC, |
3.4% |
| Ambarella Inc. |
AMBA, |
3.3% |
| Applied Industrial Technologies Inc. |
AIT, |
3.3% |
| Perficient Inc. |
PRFT, |
3.2% |
Click on the tickers for more about each company.
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
Here are the largest 10 holdings of the Black Oak Emerging Technology Fund as of March 31:
| Company | Ticker | % of portfolio |
| Apple Inc. |
AAPL, |
5.7% |
| KLA Corp. |
KLAC, |
4.6% |
| Advanced Energy Industries Inc. |
AEIS, |
4.5% |
| Cohu Inc. |
COHU, |
4.1% |
| SolarEdge Technologies Inc. |
SEDG, |
3.9% |
| Cirrus Logic Inc. |
CRUS, |
3.9% |
| Cohu Inc. |
COHU, |
3.9% |
| Ambarella Inc. |
AMBA, |
3.4% |
| Applied Industrial Technologies Inc. |
AIT, |
3.4% |
| Salesforce Inc. |
CRM, |
3.3% |
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