Morning Market Thoughts
Good morning. This afternoon is going to be very critical to the health of the market, with Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN) Microsoft (MSFT) Intel (INTC) and Starbucks (SBUX) reporting their earnings results for the first quarter. We’ve really got some of everything in that group:Alphabet: Cloud based solutions, search/online advertising revenue, fiberoptic business, self-driving cars, ecommerce, data solutions for business…the list is virtually endless.
Amazon: We get retail numbers from the Big Dog, which tell us just how badly they are stomping on brick and mortar retail stores. We also hear about their progress on Amazon Fresh, Basics (its own electronic products), Alexa and Echo…which may be coming to my house soon, so I can start feeding the CIA and NSA false information, movie/TV industry, and who knows what else. Wormholes?
Microsoft: Cloud based solutions, software (Office, Windows OS, etc.), and hardware (Surface, Microsoft PC accessories, servers, phones), consulting, advertising, and training/certification services.
Intel (INTC): Semiconductors — the biggest company around.
Starbucks (SBUX) — you know what Starbucks does. You’re probably drinking a tall skinny double latte with sprinkles, soy milk, an add-shot (because you didn’t get much sleep), and sugar free caramel syrup. (I, of course, am drinking a large cup of coffee — black).
So there’s something for everybody who is trying to figure out how our economy is really doing. Between these five companies, we’ll get a very broad and deep picture of the overall business environment. And that will make for an interesting day tomorrow morning with a lot of trading opportunities for all of us.
As for yesterday, it was a bit disconcerting to me to record the strategy session about a half hour before the bell (a rare thing for me, but sometimes life gets a say in my schedule), and then get a CNBC alert that the market was selling off after “digesting” Trump’s tax plan. As I recorded the strategy for the next day, the market was stable. Shortly thereafter, the market fell almost 1/2 of a percent before stabilizing into the close. On a happy note — when I looked at the “damage”, it really wasn’t much to speak about — it formed a minor “tombstone doji”, which was more doji and less tombstone. And that “damage” is going to be repaired at the open, as the Nasdaq futures are up 15, and the S&P is up about 4.
So there is still a bid to this market, and I urge you to check into the forum each day. The right side of the forum past highlights all of the tickers being discussed and traded by our traders. I get an impressively high number of stock ideas from the list. I click the ticker, and then read all the comments related to that ticker. It’s like walking into a trading room and saying, “Whatcha doin’? Anything happening today?” And the answers are impressive.
Hope to see you there.
–Dan
Market Update