by Krystal Daibes Higgins, CFA
Vice President, Equity Research
The U.S. stock market saw a rebound the last couple of weeks, breaking the prior three-week losing streak. The S&P 500 gains were driven by mega-cap names due in large part to their recent earnings results which exceeded investors’ expectations.
This past week was a critical one for earnings season, with tech giants such as Amazon and Apple releasing their quarterly results and continuing the positive trend that Microsoft set the prior week. These companies, part of the "Magnificent Seven," far exceeded analyst expectations by a significant margin, with most beating consensus investor estimates thus far. This is particularly impressive considering the high bar that is generally set for their performance. Apple cleared a lower hurdle but demonstrated that it still holds a tight hold on consumer’ budget priorities, both in the U.S. and abroad. In addition, the tech giant announced one of the largest stock buybacks ever at $110 billion. The announcements were received as a reprieve and as a result the stock price retraced some of its steeper decline. For Amazon, the artificial intelligence (AI) tailwind is generating strong demand for its cloud AWS business. In the most recent earnings report, Amazon announced that AWS is on track for $100 billion in sales this year. On the flipside, Starbucks (not included in the Magnificent Seven) also reported this week, however, its share price dropped after the company announced slowing sales globally amid shifting consumer preferences.
The generally strong earnings reports suggest that these mega-cap companies are navigating the current economic climate effectively. They appear able to maintain, or even grow, their profits despite ongoing concerns regarding interest rate levels and the ongoing challenge for the Fed in pushing inflation to their target of 2%. More broadly, 80% of S&P 500 companies have reported for the first quarter, and 77% of these have beaten consensus EPS expectations and are reporting growth of 5%, higher than the 3.4% quarter-end growth expectation.
However, some much-needed “bad is good” economic news came out in the labor market this week. The April jobs report showed that 175,000 jobs were added versus economists’ expectations of 240,000. Additionally, the unemployment rate unexpectedly notched slightly higher to 3.9% (which is still a relatively low, healthy percentage). Investors are welcoming any news that signals a measured economic slowdown that could then lead the Fed to cut interest rates sooner rather than later. As a reminder, investors previously expected multiple cuts beginning in March, which then got pushed out to June, and now more recently has been collectively interpreted as no cuts at all in 2024. This delay in rate cuts was the main driver of the stock market pausing in April.
Takeaways for the Week
Mega-cap companies largely exceeded analyst expectations, boosting the market despite concerns about interest rates
Weaker-than-expected jobs data was welcomed by investors as it could translate to the Fed cutting interest rates