Etsy falls after sales miss expectations + Microsoft with breakthrough in quantum computing + Mercedes-Benz with profit slump due to China + Airbus sets itself significantly higher targets for 2025 + Knorr-Bremse announces higher dividend
Etsy $ETSY (-0.39%)falls after Q4 revenue misses expectations
- Shares of Etsy (ETSY) fell more than 10% on Wednesday after the company's fourth-quarter revenue fell short of analysts' expectations.
- The company reported Q4 net income of $1.03 per diluted share, compared to $0.62 a year earlier.
- Analysts polled by FactSet had expected $0.93.
- Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 was $852.2 million, compared with $842.3 million a year earlier.Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected $861.8 million.
- The company said it expects gross merchandise sales growth in the first quarter to decline at a similar rate to the fourth quarter of 2024, which saw a 6.8% decline.
- FactSet analysts expect Q1 gross revenue of $2.90 billion.
Microsoft $MSFT (-1.57%)with breakthrough in quantum computing with new Majorana-1 chip
- Microsoft has spent 17 years researching a new material and a new architecture for quantum computers.
- Now the breakthrough has been achieved with the new Majorana 1 chip, as The Verge reports.
Mercedes-Benz $MBG (-1.31%)suffers significant drop in profits due to weakness in China
- The car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz suffered a significant drop in profits last year, mainly due to poor business in China.
- Consolidated earnings fell by a good 28 percent year-on-year to 10.4 billion euros, as the DAX-listed company announced on Thursday.
- The Stuttgart-based company had already had to drastically cut its profit expectations in September.
- The dividend is to be reduced by one euro to 4.30 euros per share.
- Mercedes also intends to launch a further share buyback of up to 5 billion euros, subject to approval by the Annual General Meeting.
- In China, the most important single market, wealthy customers are buying less expensive Mercedes cars, which is causing the high profitability of previous years to dwindle.
- In 2024, only 8.1 percent of sales before interest, taxes and special items remained as operating profit in the passenger car business across the Group.
- This was slightly less than experts had expected.
- A year earlier, it had been 12.6 percent, and even higher in the two previous years. Turnover fell by 4.5 percent to 145.6 billion euros for the year as a whole.
- Earnings before interest and taxes fell by almost a third to 13.6 billion euros, which was slightly better than experts had feared.
Airbus $AIR (-3.2%)is aiming much higher for 2025 - profit forecast disappointed
- After a bumpy year, the world's largest aircraft manufacturer Airbus is aiming for higher deliveries and profits in 2025.
- CEO Guillaume Faury plans to deliver around 820 passenger jets in the current year, more than 50 more than in the previous year, as the DAX-listed company announced in Toulouse on Thursday.
- Operating profit before special items (adjusted EBIT) is expected to climb to around 7 billion euros after falling to less than 5.4 billion euros in 2024.
- Analysts had expected a little more, especially for 2025.
- However, shareholders can expect a higher dividend for the past year: Airbus intends to pay out 3 euros per share, 1 euro of which will be a special dividend.
- For 2023, the Group had paid out 2.80 euros per share - and there was also a special dividend of one euro at that time.
- In the past year, the manufacturer increased its turnover by six percent to 69 billion euros.
- However, the adjusted operating profit fell by nine percent to 5.4 billion euros.
- On the one hand, Airbus delivered 766 fewer passenger jets than originally expected due to a shortage of components.
- On the other hand, burdens in the space business and the A400M military transporter weighed on the result.
- The surplus grew again by twelve percent to 4.2 billion euros, after suffering from unfavorable exchange rates in the previous year.
- While Faury is sticking to its latest expansion plans for passenger jet production, buyers of the new A350F freighter will have to wait longer for their aircraft.
- Instead of 2026, the first aircraft is now not scheduled to enter service until the second half of 2027.
Knorr-Bremse $KBX (+0.71%)wants to grow further and holds out the prospect of a higher dividend
- Truck and train brake manufacturer Knorr-Bremse is aiming for further growth in the current year.
- The company announced on Thursday in Munich when presenting its figures for 2024 that sales are set to increase to between EUR 8.1 and 8.4 billion.
- The management expects the adjusted margin on earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to be between 12.5 and 13.5 percent in 2025. At almost 7.9 billion euros, revenue in the past financial year was roughly on a par with the previous year.
- Declines in the commercial vehicle business were offset by growth in the rail division.
- Adjusted EBIT increased by 8.2 percent to EUR 966.4 million, while the corresponding margin improved by one percentage point to 12.3 percent.
- Knorr-Bremse benefited from its ongoing restructuring program.
- The company announced an increased dividend for 2024.
- Most recently, Knorr-Bremse had held out the prospect of at least a stable payment - compared to EUR 1.64 per share most recently.
Thursday: Stock market dates, economic data, quarterly figures
- ex-dividend of individual stocks
- BP USD 0.08
- Microsoft 0.83 USD
- Imperial Brands GBP 0.54
- Applied Materials USD 0.40
- AstraZeneca 21.00 GBX
- easyJet 0.12 GBP
- GSK 0.16 GBP
- Quarterly figures / company dates USA / Asia
- 05:00 Lenovo quarterly figures
- 13:00 Walmart quarterly figures
- 13:30 Alibaba quarterly figures
- 14:00 Walmart analyst conference
- 17:00 Visa Investor Day
- 22:00 Booking Holdings quarterly figures
- Quarterly figures / Company dates Europe
- 07:00 Mercedes-Benz | Airbus | Zurich Insurance | Knorr-Bremse | Krones | Renault Annual results
- 07:30 Schneider Electric | Indus Holding Annual results
- 08:00 Anglo American | Repsol | Lloyds Banking Annual Results | Mercedes-Benz Analyst and Press Conference
- 09:00 Knorr-Bremse BI-PK
- 09:15 Airbus PK
- 10:00 Infineon | Siemens Energy AGM
- 13:00 Zurich Insurance Analyst Conference
- 14:30 Krones conference call
- 18:00 Leonardo | Imerys quarterly figures
Economic data
08:00 DE: Producer prices January FORECAST: +0.5% yoy/+1.2% yoy previously: -0.1% yoy/+0.8% yoy | Turnover in the hospitality industry December and year 2024
08:00 CH: Trade balance January
12:00 EU: ECB balance sheet 2024
14:30 US: Initial jobless claims (week) previous week FORECAST: 215,000 Previous: 213,000
14:30 US: Philadelphia Fed Index February FORECAST: 13.2 PREVIOUS: 44.3
15:30 US: Fed Chicago President Goolsbee, speech at "Chicagoland Chamber Mid-Market" event, Chicago
16:00 EU: Eurozone Consumer Confidence Index (flash estimate) February FORECAST: -13.9 previous: -14.2
16:00 US: Leading Indicators Index January FORECAST: -0.2% yoy previous: -0.1% yoy
