MARKET MOVERS
- Walmart cuts 200 corporate jobs as costs and inventory sap profit. The company contends with rising costs, bloated inventories, and weakening demand for general merchandise. The cuts include staffers in merchandising and technology. Walmart will also add an unspecified number of jobs in areas such as e-commerce, health, and wellness, ad sales, and supply chain.
- Ford’s EV sales climbed 169%. Ford’s U.S. sales climbed 37% in July. Sales rebounded sharply from year-ago production shortages and were propelled by growing electric-vehicle sales. Ford’s increase in U.S. monthly sales was driven in part by a 169% climb in electric-car sales and a 70% jump in SUV sales. U.S. sales of trucks, which made up just over half of Ford’s U.S. monthly sales, climbed about 20%.
- Apple pushes further into the digital-advertising space. Apple is looking to hire a senior manager to run a demand-side platform (DSP) in the company's advertising business, according to a report from Digiday. The job listing suggests that Apple is planning to design its own DSP. The company is looking for a proven track record of initiating "advertising-related products for audiences in the hundreds of millions." Read more here.
- Real estate investors scoop up almost 10% of US home sales. Charlotte, North Carolina is leading the pack as the fastest-growing investor market. The other top five metro areas for investors are Branson, Missouri, at 19.5 percent; Birmingham, Alabama, at 18.9 percent; Summit Park, Utah, at 18.6 percent; and Memphis, Tennessee, at 18.5 percent. Rising mortgage rates had no effect since the transactions were all cash.
- AMD's Data Center revenue soars by 83%. CEO Lisa Su announced revenue of $6.55 billion in the second quarter of 2022, representing year-over-year growth of 70%. The rapid rate of expansion was helped in a big way by the acquisition of fellow chip company Xilinx back in February, but organic growth was impressive too. As cloud computing steadily increases in importance throughout the economy, data center upgrades are ramping up to keep pace.
- UBER Q2 earnings: doubled revenue year-over-year. Jason Calacanis says that what's remarkable about this is the company generated $382 million in free cash flow while doubling revenue year over year. The stock soared 17% after the earnings call. Gross bookings are at $29 billion up 33% year-over-year. Revenue is up 105% year-over-year to $8.1 billion which is a beat on estimates. Source(4:22)
WHAT TO WATCH
- Market technicals point to the June low being the start of a new bull. The firm looked at market breadth during bear market rallies and during the first 30 trading days of a new bull market. They found that, since June 17, the percentage of stocks in the firm’s covered universe hitting new 21-day highs has reached as high as 52.8%. The S&P 500 has rallied more than 12% since hitting a June low that put the benchmark well within a bear market territory. Read more here.
- Meta Platforms is the latest tech giant to explore a bond sale. Meta has asked Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Barclays Plc to arrange a series of fixed-income investor calls Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. A senior unsecured debt offering may follow. A senior unsecured bond offering could follow investor calls. Read more here.
- The apartment transaction market appears to be in the price discovery phase. Bid/ask are wider as highly leveraged buyers take a breather. Asset values are down ~5% to 15% and cap rates are up ~50 to 100 basis points based on earnings commentary last week.
- The great layoff might be upon us. It will be important to keep an eye on employment data in the coming 90 days. There should be an uptick due to increasing economic pressure on companies, even if we see the year-over-year inflation number start to come down. Many of the companies that conducted hiring freezes or layoffs earlier this year may be coming back for a second round in the next few weeks or months.
