Why So Serious?
Equities start the day higher but I’m grumpy as heck so I may need your help lifting my spirits. Why so serious? Well, two things got me all “I wanna move to Australia” 1) My state just had a blizzard on April 15. That’s right, early spring in Wisconsin includes 6” of ice and snow, 30 mph winds, and face numbing cold that makes everyone wonder why we live here. There isn’t a single leaf on any tree within a 50 mile radius of my home and this is what kids have to play on in April. 2) This stupid tweet that makes me wonder what the New Yorker was even thinking. It’s a CHICKEN SANDWICH people not another Crusades. Stop it, everyone just stop stuff like this. It’s divisive and dumb at a time when we need LESS division. This is a great country full of all types of people who just wanna work hard, have a family (or not), believe in what they wanna believe (or not), eat a chicken sandwich (or nuggets), and not have to shovel snow in April. Can’t we all just get along? Ok, where are we at with this here market? Still nowhere to be honest, really no rhyme or reason to price action of late. But we do have earnings on deck and Bespoke has a tidy list of the 40 biggest companies reporting this week so check it out. Can earnings be enough to lift us out of this ennui? Maybe, and think about this: wouldn’t you rather have come at this earnings season from 2,650 than 2,850? Of course you would. Imagine how good these things would’ve had to have been in order to take the market higher from January levels? Forget about it. CAT would’ve had to say “we can’t possibly make enough tractor to fill demand” and AAPL would’ve had to say “we’re sold out of all of our phones” and DIS would’ve had to say “the Antonellis were just here, we’re raising guidance because holy cow”.
After the open, we entered a sleepy market driven higher by a complete lack of geopolitical headlines. I’ll tell you what, lack of headlines is the new hotness, you should be praying nothing happens overnight. When I sit down at my desk I’m hoping Bloomberg is running one of these goofy pasta type stories instead of something out of Washington because that means the market might actually go up. There were only a couple earnings reports pre-open so let’s chew on them: BAC was just whatever meh but JBHT beat and drove the Transports higher. Relief rally? Maybe, but Transports desperately need a good season like Allegiant Air needs new planes. Up and up we went all morning long led by Materials, Telecom, and Utilities. I mean that’s not exactly the “risk on” type of rally I like but it’s better than just FB, AAPL, and GOOGL leading the way. Let’s just focus on that transports action and ignore Utilities. Shhh, pretend I never said Utilities. Winners: JBHT, CVS, ULTA, MPC, WBA, and DAL. Losers BMY, NKTR, NOV, FL, VRTX, and SBUX even though the stock closed higher. You know what I’d love to see but I’m never going to? Devil’s Tower. So cool. Zero chance given where it is, makes me sad.
We continued our boring rally in the afternoon, on very little volume, but there’s a group of people who will probably consider April 16th 2018 one of the most exciting days in corporate history. It was reported that AMZN has “shelved plans to sell and distribute pharmaceutical products after considering it last year”. Hmmmm…..let’s say you are the CEO of CVS or ESRX or MCK and someone drops that news on your desk today..…are you doing this? We closed at 2,677 up 0.8% and I’m LOCKED IN LIKE THIS FOR EARNINGS. I want to be the goto place when you have a question about who beat earnings and who missed and what CEO said “the weather was bad in Q1 so that’s why” because how often is the weather bad in Q1? I love reading thru conference calls, I enjoy the answers as much as corporate leaders must hate doing them. If you’re a CFO how badly do you wanna say “look, we missed very slightly on a number you guys made up, its one quarter among a thousand, go pound sand”
Final Score: Dow +88bps, S&P500 +81bps, Nasdaq +70bps, Rus2k +87bps
News Highlights:
- Succinct Summation of the Day’s Events: Earnings are still trickling out, no one said anything that could be construed as a policy disaster so the market rallied.
- Got a couple links for corporate leaders out there. The first is from Josh who gives sage advice: Build things, arrange things, put things together, make things happen, set things up, acquire resources and allies. Long-term, strategic progress. Dig a moat around what you’re doing so it can’t be repeated. And when you know you have a lead, that’s when you really start pushing.
- The second is about playing to your strength: “But we all have specific knowledge that can provide a nugget of competitive advantage. Whether individually, via our upbringing in the business and relationships; as a team, by the unique characteristics and functioning of the group; or as a governance and decision-making unit, it is incumbent on each investment leader to identify their home-field advantage and emphasize it to the greatest extent possible in the execution of their investment strategy. Getting an edge is hard enough without focusing on what we do best. It's time to lean in to what uniquely differentiates us from the field.”
- Quote of the Day: “You don’t need permission to live your own life but it sure does help to have someone on your side. A good financial advisor helps put you in a position to live life on your own terms. A great financial advisor gives you to confidence to do it.”
- Hey advisors, pay attention here: A recent study found 93 percent of millennials and 71 percent of Gen X investors would be more likely to work with an advisor who is tech savvy. EVERYONE needs to pay attention to this: Financial advisors are attracting Gen X and millennial clients by investing in Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, podcasts, blogs, YouTube, mobile portfolio access and modern uses for email. Let’s go!!!!
- How is this even possible?
- You’re my best friend, lemme just bump into you because I love you
For tonight’s final link let’s go wing-suiting shall we? Haven’t felt my palms sweat this much since I ate a Carolina Reaper pepper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L82vhtqh2M
Have a good night