Crossing Wall Street

Archive for April, 2014

Flat Market Ahead of Earnings
Eddy Elfenbein, April 21st, 2014 at 12:10 pm

The stock market is fairly quiet today. The S&P 500 is going for its fifth-straight rally today. We’re getting to the heart of earnings season although Monday is usually a slow day for earnings. According to numbers from Bloomberg, analysts now expect Q1 earnings growth of 0.7% and revenue growth of 2.6%.

The crisis in Ukraine continues to weigh on the market. The Russia ETF ($RSX) is down sharply today. Last week, the RSX had started to rally, but today’s action has halted that. U.S. Treasuries are doing well. A lot of money managers took big bets against U.S. Treasuries and that trade has not worked out this year. The long end of the yield curve continues to hold up well. At the end of last year, the 10-year reached a 29-month high. Since then, the TLT has beaten the S&P 500 by a good margin this year.

On our Buy List, Qualcomm ($QCOM) reached a new 52-week high this morning.
Morning News: April 21, 2014
Eddy Elfenbein, April 21st, 2014 at 6:58 am

Spanish Banks Face Tough Rivalry in Small Companies Bet

Why Putin Isn’t Scared by $115 Billion of Debt

Ukranian Gas Broker Faces Scrutiny

Japan Posts Largest Annual Trade Deficit on Record

Economists Expect US to Shake Off Winter Slowdown

Fuels From Corn Waste Not Better Than Gas

U.S. Insider Trading Cases Face Test at Appeals Court

Astrazeneca Surges on $101 Billion Takeover Reports From Pfizer

Hasbro Swings to Profit as Girls’ Products Soar

Mobile Payment Startup Square Plans Sale as Losses Widen

Exelon Beating Facebook in S&P 500 After Valuation Scare

Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century Uses Marx’s Theories to Interpret Modern Economy

Aereo Case Will Shape TV’s Future

Cullen Roche: Did Market Monetarists Accurately Predict Low Inflation?

Epicurean Dealmaker: Assume a Can Opener

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CWS Market Review – April 18, 2014
Eddy Elfenbein, April 18th, 2014 at 7:07 am

“Inflation is taxation without legislation.” – Milton Friedman

The stock market has recovered a good deal from last week’s momentum-induced slide. The S&P 500 rallied all four days this week, and the exchanges are closed today for Good Friday. All told, this was the best week for the S&P 500 since July.

This is an exciting time for the market. We’re moving into the heart of earnings season. Already about one-fifth of the S&P 500 has reported earnings; 52% of the reports have beaten on revenues, and 63% have beaten on earnings. Both numbers are about average. (That’s right, on Wall Street, beating expectations is to be expected.)

Despite this resurgence, I think the market’s shift to value, which I discussed in last week’s issue, still has some room to play out. I expect to see growth names, especially the pricey ones, lag the overall market. Investors should continue to be conservative and not tempted to chase after bad names.

In this week’s CWS Market Review, I want to address an important topic—the threat of inflation. In the eyes of the stock market, inflation is Public Enemy #1. I want to emphasize that I don’t believe the threat is serious, for now, but there’s already some evidence that inflation’s years-long decline could be over. I’ll have more to say about that in a bit.

I’ll also talk about recent earnings reports from Wells Fargo (pretty good) and IBM (rather blah). Plus, I’ll preview a slew of Buy List earnings coming our way next week, including Ford, Microsoft and Qualcomm. But first, let’s look at where we stand with regard to inflation.

Is More Inflation Headed Our Way?

Those of you old enough to remember the 70s certainly remember inflation. It was the worst thing about that decade. Well…that and disco. Every week, it seemed, prices climbed higher, and the prime rate went up, up, up.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Inflation is devastating for investors. It eats away at savings, and it knocks stock prices for a loop. On December 31, 1964, right before inflation became a problem, the Dow closed at 874.13. Exactly seventeen years later, the index stood at 875.00. Stock prices had barely budged, yet the Consumer Price Index had tripled. Then, once inflation got under control, stock prices soared. So much of the 1980s bull market was really making up for lost ground.

Inflation also has an unusual impact on earnings. Not all earnings are the same, and inflation exacts a heavy toll on asset-heavy businesses. Companies with high assets relative to their profits tend to report ersatz earnings.

Let’s look at some recent figures. Last Friday, the Labor Department reported that the Producer Price Index rose by 0.5% last month. That was the biggest increase in nine months. Economists like to track prices at the wholesale level because it’s often an early warning sign of price increases at the consumer level. Digging into the details, the rise in the PPI was driven by a 0.7% increase in wholesale services and a 1.1% rise in food prices. The core rate, which excludes food and energy, rose by 0.6%.

Then on Monday, the Consumer Price Index report showed that consumer prices rose 0.2% last month. That’s still not much, but it was more than the 0.1% economists were expecting. The core consumer rate also rose by 0.2% for its biggest monthly increase in 14 months.

Of course, some of the bad news about inflation could really be good news about the economy. Consumers are buying more stuff, and workers are harder to come by. We had another good initial claims report this week. The price of shrimp, of all things, is at a 14-year high. There have been a lot of silly predictions of about the imminent return of hyper-inflation. Don’t be fooled: every single one of these predictions has failed. The truth is that inflation has been remarkably low—and not just low, but low and stable. The year-over-year core inflation rate has stayed between 1.5% and 2.3% for the last 35 months.

I’m not going to try to predict if inflation will come back, but we have to be realistic and watch the data. One important indicator is the spread between the 5-year Treasury yield and the 5-year TIPs. This is the market’s view of what the CPI will be over the next five years. The “breakeven” spread increased this week to 2.24%, which is up 0.13% since Monday. Also, the back end of the yield curve is starting to flatten. The spread between the 5- and 30-year Treasuries just narrowed to its smallest point in five years.

A few years ago, I ran the numbers on how the stock market reacts to inflation. Here’s what I found:

Now let’s look at some numbers. I took all of the monthly returns from 1925 to 2012 and broke them into three groups. There were 75 months of severe deflation (greater than -5% annualized deflation), 335 months of severe inflation (greater than 5% annualized), and 634 months of stable prices (between -5% and +5%).

The 75 months of deflation produced a combined real return of -46.77%, or -9.60% annualized. The 335 months of high inflation produced a total return of -70.84%, or -4.32% annualized. The 634 months of stable prices produced a stunning return of more than 177,000%. Annualized, that works out to 15.21%, which is more than double the long-term average.

Here’s an interesting stat: The entire stock market’s real return has come during months when annualized inflation has been between 0% and 5.1%. The rest of the time, the stock market has been a net loser.

The Fed’s target for inflation is currently 2%, and we’ve been below that for some time. Fed Chair Janet Yellen said that’s probably due to lower energy prices and lower import prices. I want to make it clear that I don’t think inflation is a problem or will soon be a problem, but the era of rock-bottom inflation may be over. To some extent, a small increase of inflation could be beneficial. American firms are currently sitting on more than $1.6 trillion in cash, and a small boost to inflation might cause them to spend more.

The bottom line is to ignore the doom and gloom crowd. There’s no danger of hyper-inflation but it’s very likely that inflation will creep up to the Fed’s target zone. That will be another reason for the Fed to raise rates. As long as the yield curve is steep, the math is in the stock market’s favor. But the steep curve won’t last forever. Now let’s look at some recent earnings.

Good Earnings from Wells Fargo, Blah Earnings from IBM

Last Wednesday, Wells Fargo (WFC) reported Q1 earnings of $1.05 per share, which beat estimates of 97 cents per share. This was the 17th quarter in a row in which Wells has reported earnings growth.

Wells continues to be the strongest large bank in the country. As expected, their mortgage business got hit hard last quarter, but we saw that coming. Still, Wells was able to grow its loan portfolio by more than $4 billion. Their total loan portfolio now stands at $826.4 billion.

The results were particularly welcome for two reasons. One is that the earnings from competitor and former Buy List member JPMorgan Chase were pretty ugly. The other reason is that shares of WFC were sliding going into the report. Clearly, some traders were nervous, and the results quelled that. Wells Fargo remains a very good buy up to $54 per share.

IBM’s (IBM) earnings were a different story. First, I have to remind investors that many cheap stocks are cheap for a reason. The question to ask is how serious are those reasons. IBM is in a rough patch right now. In many ways, I think the company is in a place similar to where Microsoft was a few years ago.

For Q1, IBM reported earnings of $2.54 per share, which matched Wall Street’s estimate. Big Blue had revenues of $22.48 billion, which missed estimates by $320 million. This is the eighth sales decline in a row. The details weren’t pretty. Hardware sales dropped 23%. System-storage sales also dropped 23%. Software sales rose by just 1.6%. The market was not pleased, and IBM got knocked for a 3.4% loss on Thursday.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the earnings report was that IBM reiterated its forecast of earning $18 per share for this year. Wall Street doesn’t buy it, but it’s noteworthy that IBM hasn’t backed away from that forecast. I like IBM here, but it’s a longer-term story. The stock is going for less than 11 times this year’s earnings. IBM is a good buy up to $197 per share.

Seven Buy List Earnings Reports Next Week

Get ready for a lot of earnings news next week. On Tuesday, CR Bard and McDonald’s are scheduled to report Q1 earnings. CR Bard (BCR) was one of the surprising winners in the early part of this year until the shares pulled back this month. On the last earnings call, Bard said to expect Q1 earnings to range between $1.83 and $1.87 per share. For the whole year, they see earnings between $8.20 and $8.30 per share. I like this stock. Bard has increased its dividend every year since 1972. Expect another increase in a few months. CR Bard is a good buy up to $152 per share.

McDonald’s (MCD) has beaten earnings for the last two quarters, which ended a period in which they missed earnings four times in five quarters. The fast-food joint is working to turn itself around, and some of the early results look promising. Wall Street currently expects Q1 earnings of $1.24 per share. I also like MCD’s dividend, which is currently over 3.2%. MCD remains a buy up to $102 per share. I’m keeping a tight range, so don’t chase it. Let’s wait until we see strong results.

On Wednesday, April 23, Stryker and Qualcomm are due to report earnings. Three months ago, Stryker (SYK) not only beat expectations but also guided higher for the year. Interestingly, the stock initially dropped after the good news. After that, the stock rallied until the middle of February and has bounced along ever since then. The Street sees Q1 earnings of $1.08 per share, which is probably a penny or two too low. I’m curious to hear what they have to say for guidance. For now, I’m keeping my Buy Below at $90, which may have to come down soon. But Stryker is a fine buy.

Qualcomm (QCOM) may be one of my favorite stocks on the Buy List right now. Next to DirecTV, it’s our second-best performer this year. The stock is inches away from another multi-year high. Last month, Qualcomm gave us a nice 20% dividend increase, and three months ago, they sang our favorite tune—the beat-and-raise chorus. A lot of tech heads will be watching this report for clues about Smartphone sales. QCOM is a buy up to $87 per share.

On Thursday, Microsoft (MSFT) will report its fiscal Q3 earnings. It’s odd to see MSFT and its new CEO get so much good press lately. It wasn’t that long ago that MSFT was written off as a dinosaur that was desperately behind the times. Thanks to the hate, we jumped in and made a cool 40% last year with Microsoft. The Street expects 63 cents per share, and I think we’re going to see a nice beat. MSFT is a very good buy up to $43 per share.

On Friday, April 25, Moog and Ford Motor are due to report. Moog (MOG-A) was a big disappointment last earnings season. They missed by a penny and lowered guidance. The stock got crushed—although by the early part of April, it had made back a lot of what it had lost. That’s one plus to owning high-quality stocks. They often bend but rarely break. In this earnings report, I want to hear if business has improved. Moog remains a good buy up to $66 per share.

Ford (F) is also one of my favorite stocks, and I think the shares are very much undervalued. This is a crucial time for Ford, as they’re rolling out several new models this year. Business is improving in Europe, and they may break even this year. The consensus on Wall Street is for earnings of 31 cents per share. I’ll tell you right now, Ford will beat that. Ford is a solid buy up to $18 per share.

That’s all for now. Stay turned for lots more earnings next week. You can see our complete Buy List earnings calendar here. Be sure to keep checking the blog for daily updates. I’ll have more market analysis for you in the next issue of CWS Market Review!

– Eddy
Morning News: April 18, 2014
Eddy Elfenbein, April 18th, 2014 at 6:45 am

China March New Home Price Increases Ease on Tighter Credit

U.S. Jobless Claims Rise Slightly to 304,000

What Janet Yellen Didn’t Say: The B-Word

Chocolate Egg Easter Surprise Is Sticker Shock on Cocoa

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Adjust to New Banking Climate

Wal-Mart Takes on Money Transfer Companies With New Service

Baidu Leads Weekly Advance as Weibo Surges 19% in Debut

Compensation Battle Rages Four Years After BP’s U.S. Oil Spill

VimpelCom And Global Telecom Holding Announce A Strategic Partnership With The Algerian Fonds National d’Investissement And A Successful Resolution In Algeria

GM Could Benefit, Too, From An Ignition-Switch Victims Fund

Why Doesn’t Chipotle Do Sustainability Reporting? It Hasn’t Needed To

Retailer Michaels Stores Confirms Payment Card Data Breach

Hollywood Begs For a Tax Break in Some States, Including California

Epicurean Dealmaker: We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us

John Hempton: What If Anything Is Civil Insider Trading?

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Morning News: April 17, 2014
Eddy Elfenbein, April 17th, 2014 at 6:25 am

European Car Sales Strengthen on Manufacturer Incentives

Japan Government Cuts Econ View After Sales Tax; No Need For Fresh Stimulus

Dollar Strengthens Against Yen as Risk Appetite Increases

Yellen Sees Muted Inflation as Unemployment Curbs Wages

Alibaba Valuation Rises to $168 Billion After Earnings

Alibaba Plans IPO in U.S., Not Hong Kong

Despite 19% Revenue Growth, Google Q1 Earnings Disappoint Investors

Industrial Segment Growth & Gains From Cost Cuts Will Likely Lift GE’s Results

AmEx Profit Surpasses Estimates as Customer Spending Increases

Bank of America Posts Quarterly Loss on Legal Costs

DuPont Profit Tumbles Despite Growth

Post Holdings to Acquire Michael Foods for $2.45 Billion

Winter Took its Toll on the Achilles’ Heel of American Railroads

Epicurean Dealmaker: In Loco Parentis

Howard Lindzon: Sports and Markets…DraftKings and Stocktwits

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IBM Earns $2.54 Per Share
Eddy Elfenbein, April 16th, 2014 at 4:13 pm

For Q1, IBM earned $2.54 per share which matched expectations. They also reiterated their full-year estimate of at least $18 per share.

Diluted EPS:
GAAP: $2.29, down 15 percent;
Operating (non-GAAP): $2.54, down 15 percent;
Net income:
GAAP: $2.4 billion, down 21 percent;
Operating (non-GAAP): $2.6 billion, down 22 percent;
Results include impact of approximately $870 million workforce rebalancing charge and nearly $100 million gain for the divested customer care outsourcing business;
Gross profit margin:
GAAP: 46.9 percent, up 130 basis points;
Operating (non-GAAP): 47.6 percent, up 90 basis points;
Revenue: $22.5 billion, down 4 percent; down 1 percent adjusting for currency, excluding divested customer care outsourcing business:
Software, Services and Global Financing each grew, adjusting for currency;
Software up 2 percent as reported and adjusting for currency
Services down 2 percent; up 2 percent adjusting for currency and excluding divested customer care outsourcing business
Global Financing up 3 percent, up 6 percent adjusting for currency
Systems and Technology down 23 percent as reported and adjusting for currency;
Services backlog of $138 billion, up 1 percent adjusting for currency and excluding divested customer care outsourcing business;
Business analytics revenue up 5 percent, up 6 percent adjusting for currency;
Cloud revenue up more than 50 percent:
For cloud delivered as a service, first-quarter annual run rate of $2.3 billion doubled year to year;
Expect full-year operating (non-GAAP) EPS of at least $18.00.
IBM (IBM) today announced first-quarter 2014 diluted earnings of $2.29 per share, a year-to-year decrease of 15 percent. Operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings were $2.54 per share, compared with operating diluted earnings of $3.00 per share in the first quarter of 2013, a decrease of 15 percent.

First-quarter net income was $2.4 billion, down 21 percent year-to-year. Operating (non-GAAP) net income was $2.6 billion compared with $3.4 billion in the first quarter of 2013, a decrease of 22 percent. The results include the impact of a charge of approximately $870 million for workforce rebalancing and a gain of nearly $100 million for the divestiture of the customer care outsourcing business, consistent with the company’s full-year guidance in January 2014.

Total revenues for the first quarter of 2014 of $22.5 billion were down 4 percent (down 2 percent, adjusting for currency; down 1 percent, excluding the customer care outsourcing business) from the first quarter of 2013.

“In the first quarter, we continued to take actions to transform parts of the business and to shift aggressively to our strategic growth areas including cloud, big data analytics, social, mobile and security,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer.

“As we move through 2014, we will begin to see the benefits from these actions. Over the long term, they will position us to drive growth and higher value for our clients.”

First-Quarter GAAP – Operating (non-GAAP) Reconciliation

First-quarter operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings exclude $0.25 per share of charges: $0.16 per share for the amortization of purchased intangible assets and other acquisition-related charges, and $0.09 per share for retirement-related charges.

Full-Year 2014 Expectations

IBM expects full-year 2014 GAAP diluted earnings per share of at least $17.00, and operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings per share of at least $18.00. The 2014 operating (non-GAAP) earnings expectations exclude $1.00 per share of charges for amortization of purchased intangible assets, other acquisition-related charges, and retirement-related charges.
Market Rises on Good IP Report
Eddy Elfenbein, April 16th, 2014 at 10:23 am

The stock market is being helped this morning by a positive report on Industrial Production. The Federal Reserve said that Industrial Production rose by 0.7% in March, and they revised the February number up to 1.2%. The Manufacturing part of IP rose by 0.5% last month, and by 1.4% in February. These are pretty good numbers. The warmer weather appears to have thawed the economy as well.

Economists also like to look at capacity utilization which tells us what percentage of our plants are being used. For March, capacity utilization rose to 79.2% which is the highest since June 2008. This stat can be an early warning sign for inflation.

The S&P 500 is above 1,850 this morning. This looks to be our third-straight daily gain. To recap, the index hit an intra-day high on April 4 of 1,897.28, and it dropped to as low as 1,814.36 on April 11. That’s a drop of 4.4%. Our Buy List is holding on to gains this morning. The big news will come after the close when IBM ($IBM) reports earnings.
Morning News: April 16, 2014
Eddy Elfenbein, April 16th, 2014 at 6:46 am

U.K. Unemployment Falls to 6%

Lehman Freeze Evoked as Russian Bond Sale Scrapped Again

China GDP Growth Slows to 7.4%

Slackening Growth Pressures Beijing

Stumbling S&P 500 Reaches Worst Stretch of Election Cycle

Alibaba Earnings Surge Boosts Valuation Ahead of IPO

Intel’s Mobile-Chip Progress Falters as PC Market Stabilizes

Credit Suisse Net Falls 34% on Lower Investment Bank Profit

Rolls-Royce, Daimler Price Stake at $3.3 Billion

Smaill is Beautiful for Coca-Cola as Volumes Soar in China

Burberry Warns of ‘Material’ FX Headwinds This Year

CITIC Pacific in $36.5 Billion Deal to Buy Parent’s Main Business

Brazil’s Star, Petrobas, Is Hobbled by Scandal and Stagnation

Roger Nusbaum: Time to Get Real About Income Investing

Jeff Carter: How Do You Get to The Next Round?

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Today’s Inflation Report
Eddy Elfenbein, April 15th, 2014 at 1:12 pm

This morning’s consumer inflation report showed that prices rose 0.2% last month. Economists were expecting an increase of 0.1%. The “core rate,” which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.1%.

It’s too early to make such a call with confidence, but we may be seeing the end of disinflation, the falling rates of price increases.

The chart below shows the monthly changes for headline inflation (blue) and core inflation (red). The monthly changes are annualized.
Me at the Motley Fool
Eddy Elfenbein, April 15th, 2014 at 8:19 am

Here’s part of a talk I gave at the Motley Fool.