January 27, 2024

The Weekend Rip: January 28, 2024

U.S. stocks notched their third consecutive week of gains as investors await this week’s Fed decision and employment data. 👀

Let’s recap and prep you for the week ahead. 📝

What Happened?

📈 Netflix kicked off big tech earnings with solid results and membership momentum, pushing the stock to multi-year highs. Microsoft became the second stock to hit the $3 trillion milestone, while Meta climbed back above $1 trillion. Even old man IBM is taking advantage of the artificial intelligence trend, with its shares jumping to 10-year highs.

🤩 This week’s Stocktwits Top 25 report showed outperformance relative to the indexes. Last week, we began adding unique social data to the lists, so check them out!

🪫 Despite the tech sector’s strength, Tesla’s turnaround troubles continue as the electric vehicle industry’s challenges mount. Shares tumbled 12% after the company’s meager revenue growth and slipping margins led to concerns about the company’s ability to drive automobile sales growth.

💳 The U.S. economy once again surprised economists during the fourth quarter, growing at a 3.3% annualized rate on the back of consumer and government spending. The market apparently believes strong consumer spending will continue in 2024, as global payment networks like American Express, Mastercard, and Visa all soared to fresh all-time highs.

🗳️ Digital World Acquisition Corp. continued its rebound with other Trump-linked stocks after all but one of the former president’s republican opponents dropped out of the race. With geopolitical tensions remaining elevated, defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton soared to new all-time highs as it bucks the consulting industry’s broader slowdown.

📰 Several other topics made headlines, including Plug Power getting charged up, United Airlines regaining altitude, and another Monday of M&A activity.

🔥 Certain symbols were on the Stocktwits trending tab for most of the week, including $PYPL, $FSR, $SAVE, $PHUN, $BABA, and $MARA.

Here are the closing prices:

S&P 500	4,891	+1.06%
Nasdaq	15,455	+0.94%
Russell 2000	1,978	+1.75%
Dow Jones	38,109	+0.65%

Bullets

Bullets From The Weekend:

🏦 Apartment building loans could be regional banks’ next big problem. After a decade-long boom for apartment buildings, some regional banks are now facing stress in their apartment loan portfolios. Banks are the largest contingent of lenders to apartment buildings, providing nearly 40% of the sector’s financing. Higher interest rates for building and a glut of new supply in key markets are proving a double-whammy for builders, who have been betting on the higher-end rental market in cities for years. Axios has more.

💸 Shein shareholders may sell stock at a discount to attract skeptical IPO investors. The Chinese fast-fashion retailer faces mounting challenges as it prepares for an initial public offering in the U.S. sometime this year. However, some of Shein’s investors are trying to sell shares in the private market at roughly $45 billion, representing a 30% discount to its last fundraising round in May at a $66 billion valuation. It shows some investors do not believe the investor may be unable to achieve the valuation it hoped for in an IPO. More from Reuters.

📺 Amazon Prime’s push into ads could generate more than $3 billion. The video streaming platform will begin serving ads in most major markets on January 29th unless users pay an extra $2.99/month to have an ad-free experience. While the company promises to have “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers,” analysts forecast the change could generate roughly $3.3 billion in additional revenue this year. Like other tech giants, Amazon is pushing further into the higher-margin advertising business across many verticals of its business. Variety has more.

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The Brief

Need a concise summary of what’s going on this week? Look no further. Here’s an overview of important earnings and economic data for the trading week ahead.

Economic Calendar

It’s a very busy week of economic data, with investors focused on Fed and other central bank rate decisions and U.S. employment data. In addition to the above, check out this week’s complete list of economic releases.

Earnings This Week

Earnings season is in full stride, with 320 total companies reporting this week. Some tickers you may recognize are $AAPL, $AMZN, $META, $GOOG, $DECK, $SOFI, $PTON, $SBUX, $UPS, and more.