Just Keep Shopping

Based on what we took away from the company’s earnings, Home Depot still looks like it’s enjoying a wave of pandemic-era home improvements. 🏡

The company reported $4.1 billion in net earnings (or $3.92/share) on revenue of $36.8 billion. Analysts expected $3.40/share in EPS and $35 billion in revenue. Obviously, they got more than they bargained for. 👏

In notable figures: the company’s revenue gained 9.8% YoY, transactions over $1,000 were up 18% YoY, and DIY sales got dwarfed by Pro sales (industrial purchases of items like drywall and pipe) for the third straight quarter. All of these factors point to home improvement remaining in high gear, thanks to the ongoing housing shortage (which was created ambitious investors, banks, and foreign countries as they snatch up the home supply.)

$HD stock rose 5.7% today. The news prompted $LOW stock to rise in sympathy — Lowe’s will report tomorrow.

EV stocks are the market’s strongest sector right now, and it ain’t a secret. Here are some charts of the strongest EVs…

Lucid Group raced ahead 23.71% after sharing its first quarterly earnings report as a public company yesterday. $LCID has closed positive five weeks in a row and looks like it could make a sixth. The stock is now up 122% since merging with Churchill Capital IV (formerly $CCIV) on Jul 26. 

Rivian Automotive rushed 15.16% to all-time highs. 🏆 The fresh IPO has registered gains every day since its public debut. $RIVN is up over 120% since IPO and has a market cap of  $147 billion. It’s now the third-most valuable carmaker.

Tesla trucked ahead 4.08% and closed back above $1K at $1,054.73. 💰 This boost comes just a day after Elon Musk sold another 934,091 shares — he exercised his options to acquire 2.1 million shares for $6.24/share on Monday. Despite Elon’s share dump, $TSLA is hanging in there, +49.3%. 

What’s going on with Jumia? Shares of the African e-commerce company plunged 20% today despite relatively strong financial results in the company’s Q3 earnings report. Jumia was the second-most-watched stock on Stocktwits earnings calendar today.

$JMIA‘s business model depends on e-commerce adoption throughout Africa. The company posted $42.7 million in revenue — although that figure is +8.5% YoY, analysts and investors both anticipated something bigger. In other words, Jumia’s financials suggest that African e-commerce adoption is not happening as fast as investors had hoped.

Jumia reported 7.3 million active customers in Q3, a 7% increase YoY. However, the company also spent $24 million in just Q3 on marketing, so lower-than-anticipated revenue could also represent Jumia’s unsuccessful marketing efforts. Additionally, Jumia’s adjusted loss basically doubled as the company reported adjusted losses of 93% before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization.

On the bright side, the e-commerce company’s total number of orders increased 28% YoY. ☀️ Jumia Co-CEOs Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec commented:

“Our growth acceleration strategy initiated at the end of the second quarter of 2021 is starting to pay off. We are making investments in Sales & Advertising and Technology to further enhance consumer education, brand consideration as well as the relevance and convenience of our platform… We are more than ever confident about the strong growth potential of our markets and our ability to build a growing business across e-commerce and fintech activities.”

$JMIA plummeted 19.22%. 📉

U.S. retail sales rose by 1.7% in October, more than double the 0.8% growth in sales from September. 👌

The country’s biggest growth areas were gasoline sales (+47% YoY), restaurants and bars (+29% YoY), clothing stores (+25.8%) and online shopping (+10.2% YoY.) As you can imagine, inflation can be faulted for a portion of this sales growth. However, higher inflation isn’t scaring off shoppers as we roll into Q4. 🙅

The release of the latest report dropped alongside several retailers today, including Home Depot and Walmart. Both demonstrated higher sales, in support of the retail sales report. Walmart observed developing supply-chain pressures as we veer into Q4, the busiest shopping szn of them all — Walmart insists that the company will fight inflation and keep shelves stocked.

Overall, retail sales grew in spite of sky-high savings (we reported on this a month ago in our Weekend Rip) and inflation. That suggests lessened concerns about the pandemic and inflation, but we’ll still keep an eye on retailers as we approach the holidays. 🎁