May 18th - Weekly Market Report
After last week’s meeting between the leaders of the two most important economic powers, Professor Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School at the U. of Pennsylvania was asked to rate the outcome of the gathering from 1 to 10. His answer was MINUS 2 based on the following – there was NO agreement to resolve the fact that the Straight of Hormuz still remained close and China warned the U.S. NOT to interfere with its potential attempts to take over the island of Taiwan, which the U.S. President agreed to even though it is 9,000 miles away at the same time that he began the war with Iran, which is over 7,000 miles apart from the U.S.
In addition, despite the President saying that China was going to buy between 200 to 750 U.S. Boeing planes, its stock sold off for the week with no proof of these transactions taking place. And there is no evidence that China is going to buy soybeans from the U.S. instead of from Brazil, there is no proof of this taking place either.
No wonder that the Professor put out this rating, which the majority of observers tend to agree with.
The two-year Treasury yield traded above the current federal funds rate on Thursday, which means that investors think that there could be a potential rate hike ahead. The 10-year yield went above 4.50%, the highest in a year.
The Dow ended the week lower by 0.2% and the Nasdaq was lower as well, by 0.1%. Only the S&P gained by 0.1% to end at a new record high.
Real spending by households who earn more than $125,000 is up by 7.6% since January 2023, which is way ahead of others that are lower and the top 20% of earners now account for 60% of spending.
The 10 largest S&P stocks now account for 40% of the index and AMZN, GOOG and META by themselves account for 70% of this year’s earnings projections.
For the past several weeks, earnings for four out of five S&P companies have reported better earnings for the first quarter by more than 20%, far more than usual. Since the start of the war, the S&P has gained 8% which means that its price to earnings ratio has declined to 22 times, which is cheaper than it was before the start, at 27 times its earnings, based on new higher profit expectations for the rest of the year.
This week sees the following earnings results – Dow component HD on Tuesday; Wednesday – the all-important Dow component NVDA, in addition to INTU, LOW and TGT; Thursday – Dow component WMT and DE.
There is a lot of bullishness on NVDA, whose options lost all their value during Friday’s selloff and one can sell covered calls up to 300 if one owns the stock for Thursday’s earnings holding period.
Economic reports will see – Wednesday – the F.O.M.C. release of the Fed’s late April policy meeting; Friday – the Manufacturers and Services Purchasing Managers Index for April, which are expected to be lower than the prior month.
By Don Selkin