Economy on 03.05.2024...

Eventful week comes to an end ⤵️

This week was a busy one. We had a lot of quarterly figures from the big companies. $AMZN (+1,14 %) Amazon, $AMD (+5,31 %) AMD, $MMM (+0,41 %) 3M, $MCD (+0,17 %) McDonalds, $KO (-1,76 %) CocaCola, $QCOM (+2,24 %) Qualcomm, $PFIZER Pfizer, $MA (-0,63 %) Mastercard, $ETSY (-0,84 %) Etsy, $SBUX (+0,07 %) Starbucks and so on.

Yesterday, the following were added after the close of trading:

$AAPL (+2,87 %)
Apple
second quarter earnings per share of $1.53, beating analysts' estimates of $1.50. Revenue of $90.8bn, above expectations of $90.32bn. iPhone revenue of $45.96bn in the second quarter (consensus $46.4bn, previous year $51.3bn). Apple gives green light for $110bn share buyback, the largest share buyback in the company's history. Apple also signals that revenue growth is expected in the current quarter and the dividend will be increased by 4%.

$COIN (+2,46 %)
Coinbase Global
beat analyst estimates of $1.01 in the first quarter with earnings per share of $4.40. Revenue of $1.64 bn exceeded expectations of $1.3 bn.

$BKNG (-1,99 %)
Booking Holdings
Adjusted for one-time items, analysts had expected earnings per share of $13.98. Booking delivered $20.39. Revenue was also $160 million above expectations at $4.42 billion (+16.9%). Thanks to massive share buybacks, the number of outstanding shares fell by 9 % compared to the previous year. The Booking share price rose significantly.

$SQ (+2,02 %)
Block
exceeds analysts' estimates of $0.72 in the first quarter with earnings per share of $0.85. Revenue of $5.96 billion exceeds expectations of $5.83 billion.

$NET (+4,19 %)
Cloudflare
first quarter earnings per share of $0.16 beat analysts' estimates of $0.13. Revenue of $378.6m beat expectations of $373.24m.

$NOVO B (+1,62 %)
Novo-Nordisk achieves Q1 revenue of DKK 65.34bn (PY: DKK 53.36bn), EBIT of DKK 31.85bn (PY: DKK 25.00bn, analyst forecast: DKK 29.04bn) and net profit of DKK 25.40bn (PY: DKK 19.81bn). In the outlook for 2024, the company sees adjusted revenue growth of 19% to 27% (forecast: 25.9%) and an increase in operating profit of 22% to 30% (forecast: 28.6%). Weight loss aids such as Wegovy and the diabetes drug Ozempic are driving the figures and are currently meeting with very high demand, particularly in the USA. For 2024, the company is now forecasting currency-adjusted sales growth of 19% to 27% instead of the previous 18% to 26% and operating profit growth of 22% to 30% instead of 21% to 29%.

The FED also held another meeting this week and discussed interest rates. It was literally said: "The next interest rate move cannot be an increase". The prospect of June was also held out. The market will now almost certainly be pricing in a rate cut for June. If this does not happen or there are signs that it will be postponed again, it could correct sharply again. It will be interesting to see what the ECB does now. Their latest statement was that they no longer want to be dependent on the Fed when it comes to interest rate decisions. Let's see what will be decided there soon.

Next week we will continue with the quarterly figures. Of course, there were also a lot of figures from Germany and Europe. I will try to include a few from there next week without it becoming too much.

For now, I wish everyone a good weekend. Most of you will also have a short week next week.

Best regards from the Baltic coast

Martin