US FINANCIAL MARKET

Stocks Waver as Big Earnings Reports Roll In – Wall Street Journal, 10/26/2021

• Stocks wavered between small gains and losses Wednesday as investors examined earnings results from more of the biggest U.S. companies.
• The S&P 500 fell less than 0.1%, a day after the broad stocks gauge closed at an all-time high for the 57th time this year.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average—which also closed Tuesday at a record—was down less than 0.1%, while the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.3%.
• McDonald’s shares rose 1.6% after the fast-food chain said Wednesday that higher prices had lifted its U.S. sales.
• Coca-Cola gained 2.7% after the beverage firm topped Wall Street forecasts for earnings and revenue.
• Spotify gained 6.7% after posting quarterly advertising revenue up 75% from a year earlier.
• Money managers still have worries, ranging from the fate of President Biden’s infrastructure and social-spending plans to the potential unwind of Federal Reserve stimulus measures that have boosted markets since early 2020.
• In the latest sign the economy slowed in the third quarter, data out Wednesday showed durable goods orders fell 0.4% in September from August.
• In the bond market, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell to 1.580% Wednesday from 1.618% Tuesday. Yields move in the opposite direction to bond prices.
• Elsewhere, the Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.3%, pulling back from its second-highest close on record.
• Asian markets fell after American officials barred China Telecom, China’s biggest telecom operator, from doing business in the U.S., adding to investor concerns over tensions between the two biggest economies.
• China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 1% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.6%.

Microsoft Earnings Jump as Cloud Services Thrive – Wall Street Journal, 10/26/2021

• Microsoft continued to benefit from the global shift toward remote work as its cloud business boosted its revenue last quarter.
• On Tuesday it reported revenue of $45.3 billion for the three months through Sept. 30, up 22% from the year-earlier period.
• Net income rose 48% to $20.5 billion. The results exceeded analyst expectations of $44 billion in sales and $15.7 billion in profit, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.
• Microsoft said Tuesday that Azure and other cloud-computing services grew 50% in what was its fiscal first quarter.
• The company’s Microsoft Cloud business, a broader representation of its cloud offerings, generated $20.7 billion in sales.
• That was up 36% from the previous year, breaching the $20 billion quarterly sales mark for the first time.
• Sales from the Xbox content and service business expanded only 2%, compared with an increase of 30% a year earlier.
• The company’s overall gaming business grew 16%, driven by high demand for its latest consoles which came out late last year.
• Console sales jumped 166% from the year-earlier quarter.
• Microsoft’s Windows licensing to computer manufactures grew 10%, while its Surface hardware sales slipped 17% after unusually strong demand driven by Covid-19 a year ago, said Ms. Goodenough.
• The Redmond, Wash., software company said it expected to bring in between $50.15 billion and $51.05 billion in revenue in the current quarter.

Google Nearly Doubles Profit Behind Red-Hot Ad Market – Wall Street Journal, 10/26/2021

• Alphabet’s Google tallied its highest sales growth in more than a decade and nearly doubled its profit in the third quarter, as smaller businesses poured money into digital ads aimed at customers whose purchases have shifted online.
• Alphabet said Tuesday that revenue rose 41% to $65.12 billion, its largest in 14 years.
• It posted a profit of $21.03 billion, nearly three times what it reported before the pandemic.
• The company’s ad business, led by Search, Maps and YouTube, posted $53.13 billion in sales from advertising, a 43% increase.
• YouTube has been another major driver of Google’s advertising gains. The video behemoth reported sales grew 43% to $7.21 billion in the quarter.
• The business is on track to generate nearly as much revenue this year as Netflix, a subscription business valued at nearly $300 billion.
• Google, which lags behind with 6% share, reported that cloud sales rose 45% to $4.99 billion in the period.
• The sales revenue fell short of Wall Street projections for $5.19 billion in revenue, and the company reported an operating loss of $644 million for the unit, which analysts said contributed to investors selling shares in after hours trading.

Visa beats profit estimates on travel, online spending boom – Reuters, 10/26/2021

• Visa’s quarterly profit topped Wall Street expectations on Tuesday, as a recovery in travel and an improving global economic picture drove volume growth at the world’s largest payment processor.
• Total payment volumes rose 17% on a constant dollar basis from a year earlier, while the number of transactions processed by Visa rose 21% to 45.3 billion.
• Visa’s net income rose to $1.65 per Class A share for the fourth quarter ended Sept. 30, beating analysts’ estimate of $1.54 per share, according to Refinitiv data.
• The company forecast fiscal 2022 first-quarter net revenue growth in the high teens, while total cross-border volume in the reported quarter rose 38% on a constant dollar basis from a year earlier.
• Talking about its assumptions for internal planning purposes, Visa said it assumes the recovery in cross-border travel to continue through fiscal 2022 and reach 2019 levels in the summer of 2023.

AMD forecasts strong revenue on data-center, gaming chips demand – Reuters, 10/26/2021

• Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday projected higher fourth-quarter revenue than market expectations, betting on its ability to overcome a weak supply chain to meet strong demand for chips used in gaming consoles and data center servers.
• The quarterly performance was driven by a 44% surge in the computing and graphics business that includes graphic chip sales to data centers and accounts for most of the revenue.
• The company’s net income rose to $923 million, or 75 cents per share, in the quarter, from $390 million, or 32 cents per share, a year earlier.
• AMD said it expected current-quarter revenue of about $4.5 billion, plus or minus $100 million, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $4.25 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
• It also raised its annual revenue growth forecast to 65% from 60%, after beating expectations for third-quarter sales.
• The PC market may be “flattish as we go from 2021 into 2022,” while demand for chips used in Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console and Sony’s PlayStation will stay strong, Chief Executive Lisa Susaid.

Twitter Posts Strong Ad Revenue Growth Despite Apple Privacy Updates – Wall Street Journal, 10/26/2021

• Twitter largely dodged turmoil in the digital advertising market from new Apple app privacy policies and supply-chain disruptions as it reported a 37% jump in third-quarter revenue.
• The company on Tuesday posted $1.28 billion in revenue, largely in line with Wall Street expectations, with ad sales rising 41% from the year-ago period.
• Twitter use, measured by monetizable daily active usage, was up 13% year-over-year to 211 million in the third quarter, topping the 11% increase seen in the second quarter.
• Still, Twitter swung to a net loss of $537 million, from a net profit of $29 million a year ago, largely linked to a one-time charge to settle a 2016 lawsuit that alleged the company misled shareholders. The charge knocked $766 million off the bottom line.
• For the current quarter, Twitter said it expects total revenue to reach between $1.5 billion and $1.6 billion.

Robinhood Revenue Falls on a Drop in Crypto Trading – Wall Street Journal, 10/26/2021

• Revenue at Robinhood Markets fell in the third quarter from the previous one, weighed down by a sharp decline in customers’ cryptocurrency trading.
• The popular trading app recorded revenue of $365 million, a 35% drop versus $565 million during the prior quarter.
• On a year-over-year basis, revenue climbed 35% from $270 million in the third quarter of 2020.
• Some 660,000 new accounts were funded in the third quarter, but the growth wasn’t enough to offset the small decline the company saw in net cumulative funded accounts. That metric fell by 100,000 to 22.4 million in the period.
• The revenue the company earns from routing customers’ trades to high-speed trading firms—a practice known as payment for order flow—was $267 million during the quarter, down about 41% from the preceding quarter but up 32% year-over-year.
• Much of that fall was attributable to a sharp drop in revenue tied to cryptocurrency trading, which tumbled 78% to $51 million, from $233 million the quarter before.
• Quarterly revenue tied to stock and options trading ticked down 3.8% and 0.6%, respectively.
• Robinhood recorded a net loss of $1.3 billion for the quarter, or $2.06 per diluted share, which the company attributed to expenses tied to share-based compensation. For the second quarter, Robinhood recorded a loss of $502 million and for the year-earlier period, it posted a loss of $11 million.
• Robinhood said it expects seasonal slowdowns to persist in the fourth quarter, with quarterly revenue to be no greater than $325 million and full-year revenue to be less than $1.8 billion.

Supply chain woes to hurt Texas Instruments’ holiday-quarter revenue – Reuters, 10/26/2021

• Texas Instruments forecast tepid quarterly revenue and missed market expectations for the third quarter on Tuesday, as the chipmaker struggles with supply chain constraints in the semiconductor industry, sending its shares down 3.8%.
• Total revenue rose 22% to $4.64 billion from $3.82 billion last year, but missed expectations of $4.66 billion.
• Chief Financial Officer Rafael Lizardi said in a post-earnings call that the company was operating at a lower inventory level than customer target levels, especially on finished goods.
• “We’re at 112 days. Our target is 130 to 190 days. So clearly, we’re well below where we want to be,” Lizardi said.
• The company said it expects fourth-quarter revenue in the range of $4.22 billion to $4.58 billion.
• The midpoint fell short of analysts’ average estimate of $4.44 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

GM Profit Sinks as Chip Shortage Takes Toll – Wall Street Journal, 10/27/2021

• General Motors’s net profit dropped 40% in the third quarter compared with a year earlier as the computer-chip shortage dented factory output, illustrating that a parts crisis that emerged nearly a year ago continues to drag down car-industry earnings.
•  Revenue fell 25% to $26.8 billion.
• The company has benefited from the decision to give priority to its most expensive vehicles while sacrificing lower-end models, which led it to report a record transaction price of $47,467 a vehicle during the third quarter.
• Operating profit excluding one-time items was $2.9 billion, or $1.52 a share, better than the average analysts’ estimate of 98 cents, according to FactSet.
• Still, net income fell to $2.4 billion for the third quarter, as the company said it confronted lower production and heavier raw-material costs.
• In a letter to shareholders, Chief Executive Mary Barra said GM’s full-year operating profit would approach the high end of the company’s previously stated range of $11.5 billion to $13.5 billion.

Boeing posts quarterly loss on 787, Starliner problems – Reuters, 10/27/2021

• Boeing reported a quarterly loss on Wednesday as charges and expenses on its problem-plagued 787 Dreamliner and Starliner spacecraft programs dampened a ramp-up in 737 MAX deliveries amid rebounding air travel.
• Revenue rose 8% to about $15.3 billion, fueled by 737 MAX deliveries and growth in Boeing’s services unit as it sees recovery in the air travel market.
• Boeing also said it was building 19 of its 737 MAX jets per month, up from the 16 last quarter, with ongoing plans to push to 31 per month in early 2022.
• On the prospect of ramping to 50 or more jets monthly, Calhoun said, “The wild card in this one isn’t demand. It’s all about the supply chain. Whether it’s two, three or four years, I’m not sure. I do think we get there.”
• The company delivered 62 of its 737s in the quarter, the most since the first quarter of 2019 when the second of two fatal crashes grounded the plane worldwide and lurched Boeing into a crisis long overtaken by the global pandemic.
• On the 787, Boeing said it incurred abnormal costs of roughly $1 billion – or $183 million in the quarter – due to inspections and repairs over the last two years from structural defects embedded in the aircraft, confirming for the first time a price tag reported by Reuters in February.
• The U.S. planemaker reported a net loss of $132 million, compared with a loss of $466 million a year ago, but eked out a small core operating profit of $59 million, pushing shares up fractionally to $210.52 against a slightly lower Dow Jones Industrial Average.
• Quarterly free cash flow of negative $507 million compared with negative $5 billion a year ago, while Boeing’s mountain of debt fell to $62.4 billion from $63.6 billion.

McDonald’s Sales Rise as U.S. Menu Prices Climb – Wall Street Journal, 10/27/2021

• McDonald’s said higher menu prices helped lift its U.S. sales, while loosening Covid-19 restrictions overseas helped to boost its international business.
• Sales totaling $6.2 billion increased 14% from the previous year’s period.
• The burger giant said Wednesday that global same-store sales in the quarter ended Sept. 30 increased 10.2% compared with the same period before the pandemic. U.S. same-store sales were up 14.6% compared with the equivalent 2019 period.
• McDonald’s said over the summer that its menu prices had increased roughly 6% in the past year.
• The Chicago-based burger giant reported quarterly net income climbed 22% from the same quarter a year earlier, rising to $2.15 billion.

Coca-Cola raises profit forecast as strong soda sales counter cost pressures – Reuters, 10/27/2021

• Coca-Cola raised its full-year profit forecast on Wednesday, banking on higher prices and demand for its sodas globally to counter rising costs due to supply chain disruptions.
• The company’s shares rose 2.3% to $55.70, as a rebound in demand for its soft drinks, due to the reopening of public venues such as theaters, stadiums and restaurants across the world, led to a 16% jump in third-quarter revenue.
• On an adjusted basis, Coca-Cola earned 65 cents per share in the third quarter, beating estimates of 58 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
• The company expects its annual adjusted earnings per share to rise 15% to 17%, compared with a prior forecast of a 13% to 15% increase.
• While demand is expected to remain strong, Chief Financial Officer John Murphy said Coca-Cola was not immune to cost inflation in 2022 or the business impact of potential new lockdowns in some markets due to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Kraft Heinz Raises Full-Year Outlook as It Tackles Inflation – Wall Street Journal, 10/27/2021

• Kraft Heinz raised its expectations for the full year and posted higher profit for the third quarter as it wrestles with inflationary pressures.
• Net sales for the quarter fell to $6.32 billion from $6.44 billion. Analysts were looking for $6.04 billion.
• The decline includes a 4-percentage-point effect from the divestiture of its nuts business, the company said.
• Kraft Heinz said pricing in the third quarter rose 1.5 percentage points from a year earlier, primarily reflecting inflation-justified price increases in food-service and retail channels across regions.
• The food maker on Wednesday posted net income attributable to shareholders of $733 million, compared with $597 million a year earlier. Earnings were 59 cents a share, compared with 49 cents a share in the prior year.
• For the full year, the company said it expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of more than $6.2 billion, compared with the at least $6.1 billion it previously guided.
• It expects growth in 2021 organic net sales, or those excluding the effect of currency, acquisitions and divestitures and a 53rd week of shipments when they occur, to be flat compared with 2020.

Spotify Ad Business Boosted by Podcasts – Wall Street Journal, 10/27/2021

• Spotify Technology’s big bet on podcasts appears to be paying off.
• Overall for the quarter ended Sept. 30, revenue rose 27% to €2.5 billion, at the top of the company’s guidance.
• Revenue from subscriptions jumped 22% to €2.18 billion. Advertising revenue rose 75% to €323 million.
• At the end of the quarter, Spotify had 381 million monthly active users, up 19% from a year earlier and at the high end of the company’s expectations. Paying subscribers, its most lucrative type of customer, also climbed 19% to 172 million, in line with the company’s guidance range.
• Average revenue per user for the subscription business in the quarter climbed 4% to €4.34, equivalent to $5.03.
• Spotify said it has 3.2 million podcasts available on its service, up from 2.9 million in the prior quarter.
• Spotify swung to a profit of €2 million from a loss of €101 million a year earlier.
• Per share, the company posted a loss of 41 European cents, compared with a loss of 58 European cents a year earlier.
• For the fourth quarter, the company said it expects monthly active users to grow to between 400 million and 407 million, and for premium subscribers to grow to between 177 million and 181 million.
• It said it anticipates revenue of €2.54 billion to €2.68 billion.

Harley’s pivot to high-margin bikes delivers profit, revenue beat – Reuters, 10/27/2021

• Harley-Davidson reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue on Wednesday, in a sign that its turnaround plan, which focuses on selling more profitable bikes to affluent customers, was beginning to benefit the company.
• Sales from motorcycles and related products jumped 20.4% to $1.16 billion in the quarter, above analysts’ estimates of $1.14 billion, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
• Retail sales in the United States, the company’s biggest market, rose to 31,699 units in the third quarter from 31,304 units a year earlier.
• Net income rose to $163 million, or $1.05 per share, from $120 million, or 78 cents per share, a year earlier.

Hilton beats revenue estimates as leisure travel gathers pace – Reuters, 10/27/2021

• U.S. hotel operator Hilton Worldwide beat revenue estimates for the third quarter on Wednesday, as easing pandemic restrictions drive a recovery in leisure travel.
• Revenue in the quarter rose 87.5% to $1.75 billion, beating estimates of $1.65 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
• Occupancy in Hilton’s Asia Pacific region came in at 49.5% for the third-quarter, down 4.8% from a year ago.
• The company reported total expenses in the quarter of $1.31 billion, up 42% versus last year.
• But comparable RevPAR OR ‘revenue per available room’, a key performance measure for the hotel industry, was $90.39 for the quarter, about 98.7% higher than the same period last year.
• The company reported net income attributable to stockholders of $241 million, or 86 cents per share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a net loss of $79 million, or 29 cents per share, a year earlier.

Bristol Myers reports 10% quarterly sales growth as cancer drugs rebound – Reuters, 10/27/2021

• Bristol Myers Squibb on Wednesday said its third-quarter sales rose 10% and reported higher-than-expected earnings as its core cancer business regained momentum after a decline earlier this year.
• The New York-based drugmaker’s revenue for the quarter of $11.6 billion and adjusted profit of $2.00 per share both topped Wall Street estimates of $11.58 billion in sales and $1.92 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
• Cancer drugs Revlimid and Opdivo generated sales of more than $3.3 billion and $1.9 billion respectively.
• The blood thinner Eliquis, which Bristol shares with Pfizer, brought in more than $2.4 billion.
• All three were higher than sales reported a year earlier.
• Bristol Myers raised the low end of its full-year adjusted profit forecast by 5 cents and now expects to earn $7.40 to $7.55 per share.

General Dynamics lowers revenue outlook as profit rises on marine, aero sales – Reuters, 10/27/2021

• Defense contractor General Dynamics posted a 3% rise in third-quarter profit on Wednesday, boosted by higher sales in the unit that makes U.S. Navy ships and its aerospace division, which makes Gulfstream business jets, but trimmed its annual revenue target by $400 million.
• Revenue rose 1.5% to $9.57 billion in the quarter, but missed an average analyst estimate of $9.85 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
• The company delivered 31 Gulfstreams versus 32 a year ago, and said it planned to deliver 40 in the fourth quarter.
• Sales in General Dynamics’ Marine Systems unit, which makes nuclear-powered submarines and surface ships for the U.S. Navy, rose 9.6% to $2.64 billion, while aerospace sales rose 4.6% to $2.07 billion.
• Net earnings rose to $860 million, or $3.07 per share, beating an average analyst estimate of $2.98 for the quarter ended Oct. 3, up from $834 million, or $2.90 per share, a year earlier.

Thermo Fisher lifts annual forecast on boost from COVID-related sales – Reuters, 10/27/2021

• Thermo Fisher Scientific on Wednesday reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and raised its full-year forecast for revenue as well as earnings, fueled by strong COVID-19 related sales and recovery in its mainstay business.
• The company reported $2.05 billion of COVID-19 response revenue in the third quarter, which includes sales related to vaccines and therapies as well as diagnostic testing, up from $1.9 billion in the second quarter.
• Thermo Fisher’s mainstay business revenue grew by 10% organically in the quarter and the company raised its 2021 revenue forecast by $1.2 billion to $37.1 billion.
• It now expects adjusted profit of $23.37 per share, up from its previous forecast of $22.07 per share.
• However, the company said it continues to assume COVID-19 testing related revenue of $450 million in the fourth quarter, and expects testing to bring in $750 million next year.

U.S. holiday sales to rise as much as 10.5%, hit record levels in 2021 – NRF – Reuters, 10/27/2021

• U.S. holiday sales could rise over 10% from last year in 2021, a trade body said on Wednesday, as major consumer goods makers and retailers work to prevent supply chain disruptions from leaving shelves empty of in-demand toys and games.
• The National Retail Federation (NRF) forecast sales to increase between 8.5% and 10.5%, to between $843.4 billion and $859 billion, during November and December, compared with a previous high of $777.3 billion in 2020.
• The numbers exclude automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants.
• “If retailers can keep merchandise on the shelves and merchandise arrives before Christmas, it could be a stellar holiday sales season,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said.