My top 10 things to watch Thursday, Oct. 10
1. Wall Street was lower after data on September inflation and weekly initial jobless claims both came in worse than expected. The S&P 500 and Dow each closed Wednesday’s session at record highs and were sitting on solid gains for the week. The Nasdaq was leading the way this week, up nearly 1%, but it was still about 2% off its July records.
2. The consumer price index for September rose 0.2% month over month and 2.4% year over year — both were slightly hotter than expected. Jobless claims for the week ending Oct. 5 were 258,000, exceeding the 230,000 estimate. The latest numbers on wholesale inflation are out on Friday.
3. Morgan Stanley analysts met in New York City with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and CFO Colette Kress this week and said that “long-term confidence remains high.” The Club name remains Morgan Stanley’s top pick in semiconductors. Nvidia has been on a three-day roadshow demonstrating its artificial intelligence capabilities.
4. Tesla holds its robotaxis event Thursday evening. How far along is the Elon Musk company in autonomous vehicles? The neural networks behind self-driving will be revealed. Alphabet‘s Waymo self-driving taxi platform uses Nvidia, too. Tesla still uses Nvidia for its Dojo training computer.
5. Advanced Micro Devices holds its Advancing AI event at noon ET. CEO Lisa Su’s presentation on GPUs is seen as a possible catalyst for the stock. AMD remains behind Nvidia but still sees plenty of demand. There’s debate on whether the Club name will raise guidance Thursday or with earnings toward the end of the month.
6. Goldman Sachs cut its Microsoft price target to $500 per share from $515 on slightly lower free cash flow expectations. The analysts kept their buy rating as the strong Azure cloud activity is estimated to boost revenue by 14%. They added that the Club name’s earnings growth expectations justify its stock valuation.
7. Costco reported late Wednesday that net sales in September rose 9% to $24.62 billion. Same-store sales — both headline and ex-gasoline prices impact — were up in every region. E-commerce soared. Wells Fargo analysts said that “already strong comps benefit from hurricane/port strike stock-up behavior.”
8. JPMorgan downgraded Honeywell to neutral from an overweight. The analysts raised their price target on the Club holding to $235 per share from $225. They had been a long-time supporter of Honeywell for 15 years, but worry that its materials spin-off appears dilutive.
9. Citi cast doubt on growth at Netflix. The analysts think it will come up short when the streaming giant reports earnings next week. Morgan Stanley, however, said Hollywood favors Netflix and feels the company should deliver a good quarter. How often do we have to play this game?
10. Kind of an insane turn by former Pfizer CEO Ian Read and ex-CFO Frank D’Amelio. They stepped back from activist investor group Starboard, which has a stake and wants to find ways to boost shareholder value in the struggling drugmaker. Read and D’Amelio said they’re “fully supportive” of current Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
Sign up for my Top 10 Morning Thoughts on the Market email newsletter for free
(See here for a full list of the stocks at Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.)
As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade.
THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY, TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER. NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Read the full article here