I know there was breathless reporting on the market yesterday. There was that monster sell-off in the stock market, except it wasn’t a monster sell-off for Blue Chips stocks or the S&P 500. The impeachment noise added another layer of frustration to the market. I don’t think any professional money manager (not to be confused with traders) took any evasive action yesterday and sold everything.
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.53%
- S&P 500: -0.84%
- NASDAQ Composite: -1.46%
- Russell 2000: -1.58%
- Semiconductor Index: -1.48%
That said, the tech wreck is pressuring the NASDAQ Composite. The market breadth was ugly, but milestones underscored just how much pressure is building in the NASDAQ.
NYSE
- New Highs: 112
- New Lows: 28
NASDAQ
- New Highs: 62
- New Lows: 102
IPO Debacle Worsens
There are problems in momentum names revealed by the current sell-off in them and those (formerly) hot initial public offerings (IPOs).
Meanwhile, as names like Netflix (NFLX) continue to struggle, recently debuted names are getting slammed. There is news of major changes in the role of WeWork. The founder, Adam Neumann, is giving up the role of CEO, and perhaps lowering his super voting stock from a ratio of 20 to 1 for regular shareholders (otherwise known as suckers) to maybe 3 to 1. It reinforces the notion that most of these stocks are overvalued, led by megalomaniacs and may never be profitable.
Lots of carnage IPO, including:
- Beyond Meat (BYND): -3.53%
- Lyft (LYFT): -7.57%
- CrowdStrike (CRWD): -6.56%
- Pinterest (PINS): -5.04%
- Slack Tech (WORK): -3.97%
The great news is all the Silicon Valley insiders made billions, and none of these CEOs can be accused of leaving money on the table because the stock rallied. Congratulations.
There’s money to be made with all those names being hammered together, but it’s tough to step in now that the dam has broken.
Back to Market News:
After the close, the following companies released financial results:
Nike (NKE)
- Revenue: $10.70 billion, consensus: $10.42 billion
- Earnings: $0.86, consensus: $0.70
- Gross Margin (GM): 45.7 from 44.2
- Effective Tax Rate: 12.4% from 14.0%
Geographic Performance | Revenue | Change |
North America | $4,293,000,000 | +4% |
Europe, Middle East & Africa | $2,773,000,000 | +12% |
Asia Pacific | $1,345,000,000 | +13% |
Greater China | $1,679,000,000 | +27% |
Strong sales around the world, particularly China, point to global brand power that powered the shares to an all-time high after the close.
Cintas (CTAS)
It posted revenues and earnings that beat the Street while hiking full-year guidance on top and bottom lines. I’m frustrated we closed this out, although we didn’t panic when the shares sold off after posting results earlier in the year. I love this stock as a proxy for America’s blue-collar economy.
Cintas leads the industry in supplying corporate identity uniform programs, providing entrance and logo mats, restroom supplies, promotional products, first aid, safety, fire protection products and services, and industrial carpet and tile cleaning. We operate more than 400 facilities in North America—including six manufacturing plants and eight distribution centers. |
Portfolio Approach
We sent an alert to take profits on a Technology position and still are overweight on the sector, despite the pressure in key names. On that note, I loved the action in Boeing (BA) yesterday. While there have been false breakouts, the way shares snap back after swoons underscores a huge demand for the stock. It will materialize once the 737 saga is resolved, but probably even before then.
Communication Services | Consumer Discretionary | Consumer Staples |
1 | 2 | 2 |
Energy | Financials | Healthcare |
1 | 1 | 2 |
Industrial | Materials | Real Estate |
3 | 2 | 1 |
Technology | Utilities | Cash |
3 | 0 | 2 |
Waiting in the Transcript
Everyone is waiting for President Trump to release the unredacted and now unclassified transcript of his July phone call with Ukraine’s President.
It’s high drama stuff, which will be interpreted by the listener. The fact that it’s being released suggests President Trump’s lawyers think it won’t be incriminating, even as initial steps for impeachment officially began yesterday evening.