Yahoo Finance Micron, Levi's Trade Down After Market on Earnings
Wednesday, June 26th, 2024
Markets finished mostly in the green today. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 benefited from Amazon’s AMZN record closing high (and first time with a more than $2 trillion market cap) and ended the session +0.49% and +0.16%, respectively. The Dow barely eked out a positive trading day, +0.04%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 brought up the rear, down 0.33% for the session. The Dow remains the only major index that’s up over the past five trading days.
New Home Sales numbers for May were released today. It was a big miss from expectations — 619K new homes sold for the month compared to 640K projected — but this was pulled forward by a sizable revision for April, from 634K originally reported to 698K now. The May number is the lowest tally since November of last year, but the revised April figure is the highest since last July. All regions were down, from the Northeast (-43.8% to 18K new homes sold) to the Midwest (-8.6% to 85K). The median price was $417.4K, while the average selling price reached $520K.
After today’s closing bell, Micron MU is out with fiscal Q3 earnings. The semiconductor/A.I. play outperformed on both top and bottom lines: earnings of 62 cents per share overtook the 50 cents in the Zacks consensus, while revenues of $6.81 billion easily surpassed the $6.70 billion analysts were looking for, and +17% sequentially. Shares fell -9% directly on the news, perhaps on the in-line guidance for the current quarter. If your stock price is up +70% year to date, you’re likely priced for perfection. MU shares are now moderating down to -5% or so at this hour in late trading.
Levi Strauss & Co. LEVI also released earnings this afternoon. The company posted a 5-cent beat to 16 cents per share, 4x higher than the year-ago report, while quarterly sales narrowly missed estimates, coming in at $1.44 billion. Direct-to-Consumer grew +8% in the quarter, and its dividend yield was also adjusted +8% higher. But shares have fallen -14% on this news — again, after having been bid up strongly year to date (+42%). We look for guidance on the upcoming conference call, at which time they may be able to stop the hemorrhaging.
Tomorrow morning we’ll see some new economic data. These include the second revision of Q1 GDP — expected to tick up 10 basis points (bps) to +1.4% — and Durable Goods Orders for May, along with the normal Weekly Jobless Claims and Continuing Claims. Earnings reports continue to file in slowly as well, with Walgreens Boots Alliance WBA prior to the opening bell and NIKE NKE reporting after the close.
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