THE ONLY NEWS THAT MATTERED TODAY
by ilene - August 27th, 2010 1:37 pm
THE ONLY NEWS THAT MATTERED TODAY
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Bernanke is out of bullets. Anyone who can’t see that by now is not familiar with the Japanese history of QE or the most recent impacts of QE (Ben clearly didn’t save the economy with QE1 or we wouldn’t even be having this discussion). He says he will cut interest on reserves or alter the language in his speeches – total non-events in my opinion. They might get the market all excited for a few hours, but soon people will realize that none of these actions will actually fix the recession on Main Street.
Aside from all the jawboning out of the Fed, there was some actual market moving news today. Intel cut its Q3 earnings. According to the AP:
“Intel said it now expects revenue of $10.8 billion to $11.2 billion for the fiscal third quarter, which ends in September. That compares with a previous forecast of $11.2 billion to $12 billion.
On average, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected $11.5 billion.”
This is big news in my opinion. Not only are semiconductors economically sensitive, but Intel has been crushing estimates quarter after quarter for almost two years. As we mentioned the other day, we could be at a crucial turning point where the economy is slowing substantially and analysts estimates appear high. If Intel is any early indication it would seem to verify this thinking which means we are likely to see more warnings and a lot of analyst cuts in the coming months. Earnings are the linchpin holding this market together. A decline in earnings will certainly put pressure on the markets.
Quick Comment on Intel, Earnings
by ilene - April 14th, 2010 11:46 am
Quick Comment on Intel, Earnings
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
I’m running around to meetings with clients today, but I thought I’d check in and opine on the first few earnings reports of the quarter…
9 months ago, on the heels of Intel’s ($INTC)Q2 2009 earnings report, I blogged "And a Chipmaker Shall Lead Us". My premise was that good news for Intel was good news for a host of geographic regions and different industries because of how ubiquitous their products are. The Dow was probably somewhere in the 8000′s then.
Intel trounced expectations once again last night and, combined with a terrific report out ofJPMorgan ($JPM), these numbers have provided the ammo needed for a more convincing break above Dow 11,000 than what we saw in the prior two days of trading.
Unlike a Citigroup ($C) or a Wells Fargo ($WFC), one really can’t rip into an Intel earnings report and spout off about how it’s all false and manipulated and obfuscated. With Intel, profits is profits.
Anyway, the market seems to like the news, but the week ain’t over yet…GE ($GE), Google ($GOOG) and Bank of America ($BAC) are in the on deck circle. It remains to be seen whether or not they can measure up to the reports we’ve seen thus far.
Carry on.
Intel: Nice Performance, But….
by ilene - January 14th, 2010 10:02 pm
Basically favorable review of the Intel results by Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker:
Intel: Nice Performance, But….
The Danger of Earnings Season Extrapolation
by ilene - October 28th, 2009 8:07 pm
The Danger of Earnings Season Extrapolation
Yes, we all get excited when an Amazon.com scorches their earnings forecast or when an Apple Inc. Suge Knights the whole sell-side with a massive beat, but should that enthusiasm really spread to other stocks?
One of the dangers of extrapolating the good earnings reports out of Apple, Amazon or Intel is that in reality, these three companies have no real competitors. I know they pretend they do (or even imagine they do), but trust me, they don’t. Let’s take them one by one.
Apple Inc. (AAPL)
Apple has a monopoly – on Apple products! They don’t compete with Dell for the simple reason that Dell doesn’t sell iPhones or Mac laptops, they only sell Dell stuff. Hewlett-Packard, while a great company in their own right, also doesn’t sell iPods or own the world’s most important music store (iTunes).
Apple is a de facto monopoly and so their results are only very indirectly meaningful to the sellers of any other personal technology products. In fact, their success can be downright detrimental to the results of others (go ask Nokia or whatever jackass is working on the next iteration of the Microsoft Zune).
Amazon.com (AMZN)
The Buffetts of the world prefer owning companies that have a wide moat, meaning they have a barrier against other companies who would look to compete. Amazon has moat that is filled, not unlike its titular river, with enough piranhas to eat any pretender alive who dares to set up shop. Oh, and the piranhas in Amazon’s moat are armed to the teeth and carry an especially lethal venom containing a mixture of swine flu, asbestos and arsenic.
There’s a digital graveyard somewhere in Silicon Valley filled with the remains of such pretenders, like eToys, Buy.com, CDNow and anyone else still hanging around. And don’t get me started on Barnes and Noble, I buy and read 50 or 60 books a year and I still don’t even know their e-store’s URL.
Intel (INTC)
Referring to AMD versus Intel as a David and Goliath situation is being way too generous. In actuality, Intel’s Goliath is really battling David’s pet poodle, named Pumpernickel. AMD has been nipping at Intel’s ankles for as long as I’ve been in the business, to
A Quick Daily Look at Google and Intel
by Chart School - July 19th, 2009 12:44 pm
A Quick Daily Look at Google GOOG and Intel INTC
Courtesy of Corey at Afraid to Trade
With Google (GOOG) announcing earnings that ‘disappointed’ Thursday night and Intel’s (INTC) earnings earlier in the week surprised, let’s take a quick look as of July 17th at these two market moving stocks.
First, with Google (GOOG):
Google, like Apple (AAPL), has been in a very strong uptrend off the early March lows. With only one pullback before the June highs, price rose almost without pausing.
The run-up into the June high was tremendously powerful (that’s why people trade Google – for the action and volatility) which terminated in a doji that gapped up into an exhaustion/reversal bar just above $440.
We had an “abc” move down off those highs into what appears to have formed a “double top” at prior resistance with a slight negative momentum divergence.
Notice how volume spiked Thursday as traders/investors took positions in expectation of blow-away profits (similar perhaps to Intel). Playing the ‘earnings game’ can be very risky, as expectations were not met by Google’s latest announcement. We are now in a ‘pullback/retracement’ mode.
Next, on to Intel (INTC):
As opposed to Google, expectations for Intel (INTC) were lower, and so better than expected numbers caused the stock to surge, driving the S&P minis up nine points after Tuesday’s close (which preceded a trend day on Wednesday… though strangely enough Intel formed a doji on Wednesday and a ‘trend day’ on Thursday).
Volume surged to a new 2009 high as did price and the 3/10 momentum oscillator – all signs of fresh and enduring momentum that should lead to higher prices in the established up-trend (though expect a pullback/retracement instead of a parabolic rally – the new momentum high indicates a short-term overbought reading, as do all oscillators).
So it’s a different picture as painted by two market leaders.
Corey Rosenbloom, CMT
Afraid to Trade.com
Photo: A Winning Miss, Buxom woman rolling dice, copyrighted by Art Photo Co., Grand Rapids, Mich, Wikipedia.
Intel: Too Much, Too Far, Too Fast
by ilene - July 15th, 2009 11:13 am
In this second article by Karl, he examines Intel’s quarterly results and is not as excited as the market. Why? Layoffs. Intel excels at cost management – good for Intel, but not a sign of healthy economic recovery. – Ilene
Intel: Too Much, Too Far, Too Fast
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Intel Corp’s quarterly results and outlook blew past Wall Street forecasts on better-than-expected consumer demand for PCs, especially in Asia, setting an auspicious tone for the technology sector.
Uh, well….
Sure, if you just read the PR on the earnings.
Someone filed that story before the conference call, or simply ignored it.
The strong growth came in Asia, specifically China, which blew out a huge stimulus program. Ok.
But it was specifically stated on the conference call that US consumer sales were weak, and repeating what DELL said earlier, so are enterprise sales.
The quote that was chosen is rather humorous:
Smith told Reuters that computer markets were strengthening and there were "pockets of relative strength" in consumer PC markets, as well as in the Asia Pacific and in China.
Pockets of relative strength.
Yes, there are. Netbooks in particular are relatively strong – a new, very-low-cost alternative to laptops. $300, 400, 500 machines – not the $1,000+ machines previously sold, and they’re replacing the demand that used to be filled by those $1,000 machines! That’s not so good.
Neither is this:
Executives warned that the corporate market remained weak, and Intel does not expect much change in the second half.
Heh wait a second – I thought this was a bullish report for capital spending and the chip sector? No? IBM’s primary market is to enterprise customers, not consumers.
The bigger problem for Intel is its P/E – now well over 20, its just too high – unless we get a very strong economic recovery.
If you’re in the Dennis Kneale camp on that, have at it. I’m going to pay close attention to the reaction in the real market tomorrow when the stock opens for trading by the pros – not the aftermarket daytrader games of the evening, with most of that volume happening before the…