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Investors Brace Themselves for a Flood of Earnings & Fed

Volatility is picking up as investors brace themselves for a flood of earnings announcements this week and the Fed meeting next week. The VIX volatility index closed up 5.60% on Tuesday even though the S&P was up 0.15%.

Facebook (FB) fell 5% on…

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Volatility is picking up as investors brace themselves for a flood of earnings announcements this week and the Fed meeting next week. The VIX volatility index closed up 5.60% on Tuesday even though the S&P was up 0.15%.

Facebook (FB) fell 5% on Tuesday despite better than expected earnings. Dragging on the stock is weaker than expected revenues and reduced expectations for Q4 revenues. The political scrutiny on FB is also not doing shareholders any favors.

FB is down over 20% since September and is close is flirting with the 200-dma. It is currently repeating its price action from March, where it found support and rallied to all-time highs. However, investors may want to be more cautious about the stock for now until price action improves.

What To Watch Today

Economy

  • 7:00 a.m. ET: MBA Mortgage Applications, week ended Oct. 22 (-6.3% during prior week) 
  • 8:30 a.m. ET: Advance Goods Trade Balance, September (-$88.3 billion expected, -$87.6 billion in August)
  • 8:30 a.m. ET: Wholesale Inventories, month-over-month, September preliminary (1.0% expected, 1.2% in August)
  • 8:30 a.m. ET: Durable Goods Orders, September preliminary (-1.1% expected, 1.8% in August)
  • 8:30 a.m. ET: Durable Goods Orders, excluding transportation, September preliminary (0.4% expected, 0.3% in August)
  • 8:30 a.m. ET: Non-defense Capital Goods Orders, excluding aircraft, September preliminary (0.5% expected, 0.6% in August)
  • 8:30 a.m. ET: Non-defense Capital Goods Orders, excluding aircraft, September preliminary (0.5% expected, 0.8% in August)

Earnings

Pre-market

  • 6:00 a.m. ET: Hilton Worldwide Holdings (HLT) to report adjusted earnings of 78 cents per share on revenue of $1.7 billion
  • 6:55 a.m. ET: The Coca-Cola Company (KO) to report adjusted earnings of 58 cents per share on revenue of $9.72 billion
  • 7:00 a.m. ET: CME Group (CME) to report adjusted earnings of $1.56 per share on revenue of $1.15 billion
  • 7:00 a.m. ET: McDonald’s (MCD) to report adjusted earnings of $2.46 per share on revenue of $6.03 billion 
  • 7:00 a.m. ET: Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMYto report adjusted earnings of $1.92 per share on revenue of $11.55 billion
  • 7:00 a.m. ET: Kraft Heinz (KHC) to report adjusted earnings of 58 cents per share on revenue of $6.07 billion
  • 7:30 a.m. ET: Boeing (BA) to report adjusted losses of 17 cents per share on revenue of $16.49 billion
  • 7:30 a.m. ET: General Motors (GMto report adjusted earnings of $1.00 per share on revenue of $26.45 billion

Post-market

  • 4:00 p.m. ET: Align Technology (ALGN) to report adjusted earnings of $2.60 per share on revenue of $977.67 million
  • 4:05 p.m. ET: Ford (F) to report adjusted earnings of 27 cents per share on revenue of $31.56 billion
  • 4:05 p.m. ET: eBay (EBAYto report adjusted earnings of 89 cents per share on revenue of $2.46 billion
  • 4:10 p.m. ET: ServiceNow (NOWto report adjusted earnings of $1.39 per share on revenue of $1.48 billion
  • 4:15 p.m. ET: United Rentals (URIto report adjusted earnings of $6.73 per share on revenue of $2.59 billion
  • 4:20 p.m. ET: Xilinx (XLNXto report adjusted earnings of 91 cents per share on revenue of $891.69 million
  • 4:30 p.m. ET: O’Reilly Automotive (ORLY) to report adjusted earnings of $7.18 per share on revenue of $3.30 billion 

Courtesy of Yahoo

Waste Management (WM) Earnings

WM third-quarter GAAP EPS is short of the consensus at $1.28 versus an expected $1.33. Revenue of $4.7B (+21% YoY) topped expectations of $4.55B, driven by volume growth and increased yield. Management raised guidance for FY21 revenue growth to 17%-17.5% from 15.5%-16% previously. The new guidance is above the consensus of 16% YoY. Accelerating cost inflation was mentioned as a headwind, but the company remains on track to meet its full-year targets according to the CEO. The stock was down .86% yesterday following the release. We hold a 1% position in the Equity Model.

Below is the technical overview from RIAPRO.NET

Raytheon Technologies (RTX) Earnings

RTX third-quarter GAAP EPS of $0.93, is just above the consensus of $0.91. Revenue of $16.2B (+8.1% YoY) came in short of expectations of $16.36B. Guidance for FY21 revenue is now $64.5B from a prior range of $64.4B-$65.4B. This is slightly below the consensus of $65.2B. Guidance for FY21 adjusted EPS is now $4.10-$4.20 from $3.85-$4.00 previously; the consensus is $4.06. Management commented that a rebound in air travel was the impetus for raising earnings guidance. Despite the upbeat guidance, the stock traded 2.15% lower yesterday due to gloomy forecasts from its competitor, Lockheed Martin (LMT). We hold a 1.5% position in the Equity Model.

Seasonality Still In Play

Seasonality is still playing as stocks continue their upward advance. As we noted previously, with the Fed announcing “taper” next week, inflation running hotter than expected, and stocks back to more extreme overbought conditions, the upside is likely limited near term. Some risk management is likely wise.

More Tesla

Yesterday we noted that Tesla’s market cap increased by approximately $100 billion. To put the gain in context, consider yesterday’s increase in market cap is worth about 1.5x the total value of Ford and about half of the entire domestic auto industry. Also interesting, Elon Musk added nearly $30 billion of personal wealth yesterday. He is now supposedly worth more than Exxon.

The graph below shows Tesla is valued at 42% of the entire auto industry despite having a very small fraction of total sales/revenue. Ford and GM recently reported annual sales of $137 and $139 billion respectively. Tesla’s latest report shows $46 billion in sales. Simply, the market is betting heavily that TSLA will be the dominant leader in auto sales over the next five to ten years. Anything short of 50% market share will likely be a disappointment for shareholders. If you do not buy into the prospects we offer caution. Tesla is one of the hottest stocks in the market, so selling or shorting the company may be painful in the short run.

Consumers Are Fretting

The Langer Consumer Comfort Index is a high-frequency confidence index. While lesser followed than the University of Michigan survey or the Conference Board’s consumer survey, it provides another data set to assess consumer attitudes. Given personal consumption traditionally accounts for two-thirds of economic growth, this measure is essential to follow.

In its most recent October 21st report, Langer notes: “Consumer sentiment continued down this week, dropping to nearly a seven-month low as Americans’ assessments of their personal finances and the buying climate extended their largest declines since early in the coronavirus pandemic.”

At 49.7, the Index is well above its March 2020 lows of 35 but a ways off its pre-pandemic highs near 70. For context, the Langer Index looks similar to the Conference Board Survey, sitting between post-pandemic highs and lows. On the other hand, the University of Michigan Sentiment Index is now at its lowest level since the pandemic and the lowest level in ten years. The importance of consumer confidence is not just economic. As their graph below shows, there is a strong correlation between the changes in stocks prices and consumers’ sentiment. Recently, stocks have soared despite weakening confidence.

The post Investors Brace Themselves for a Flood of Earnings & Fed appeared first on RIA.

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Moderna turns the spotlight on long Covid with new initiatives

Moderna’s latest Covid effort addresses the often-overlooked chronic condition of long Covid — and encourages vaccination to reduce risks. A digital…

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Moderna’s latest Covid effort addresses the often-overlooked chronic condition of long Covid — and encourages vaccination to reduce risks. A digital campaign debuted Friday along with a co-sponsored event in Detroit offering free CT scans, which will also be used in ongoing long Covid research.

In a new video, a young woman describes her three-year battle with long Covid, which includes losing her job, coping with multiple debilitating symptoms and dealing with the negative effects on her family. She ends by saying, “The only way to prevent long Covid is to not get Covid” along with an on-screen message about where to find Covid-19 vaccines through the vaccines.gov website.

Kate Cronin

“Last season we saw people would get a flu shot, but they didn’t always get a Covid shot,” said Moderna’s Chief Brand Officer Kate Cronin. “People should get their flu shot, but they should also get their Covid shot. There’s no risk of long flu, but there is the risk of long-term effects of Covid.”

It’s Moderna’s “first effort to really sound the alarm,” she said, and the debut coincides with the second annual Long Covid Awareness Day.

An estimated 17.6 million Americans are living with long Covid, according to the latest CDC data. About four million of them are out of work because of the condition, resulting in an estimated $170 billion in lost wages.

While HHS anted up $45 million in grants last year to expand long Covid support initiatives along with public health campaigns, the condition is still often ignored and underfunded.

“It’s not just about the initial infection of Covid, but also if you get it multiple times, your risks goes up significantly,” Cronin said. “It’s important that people understand that.”

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Consequences Minus Truth

Consequences Minus Truth

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“People crave trust in others, because God is found there.”

-…

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Consequences Minus Truth

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“People crave trust in others, because God is found there.”

- Dom de Bailleul

The rewards of civilization have come to seem rather trashy in these bleak days of late empire; so, why even bother pretending to be civilized? This appears to be the ethos driving our politics and culture now. But driving us where? Why, to a spectacular sort of crack-up, and at warp speed, compared to the more leisurely breakdown of past societies that arrived at a similar inflection point where Murphy’s Law replaced the rule of law.

The US Military Academy at West point decided to “upgrade” its mission statement this week by deleting the phrase Duty, Honor, Country that summarized its essential moral orientation. They replaced it with an oblique reference to “Army Values,” without spelling out what these values are, exactly, which could range from “embrace the suck” to “charlie foxtrot” to “FUBAR” — all neatly applicable to our country’s current state of perplexity and dread.

Are you feeling more confident that the US military can competently defend our country? Probably more like the opposite, because the manipulation of language is being used deliberately to turn our country inside-out and upside-down. At this point we probably could not successfully pacify a Caribbean island if we had to, and you’ve got to wonder what might happen if we have to contend with countless hostile subversive cadres who have slipped across the border with the estimated nine-million others ushered in by the government’s welcome wagon.

Momentous events await. This Monday, the Supreme Court will entertain oral arguments on the case Missouri, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al. The integrity of the First Amendment hinges on the decision. Do we have freedom of speech as set forth in the Constitution? Or is it conditional on how government officials feel about some set of circumstances? At issue specifically is the government’s conduct in coercing social media companies to censor opinion in order to suppress so-called “vaccine hesitancy” and to manipulate public debate in the 2020 election. Government lawyers have argued that they were merely “communicating” with Twitter, Facebook, Google, and others about “public health disinformation and election conspiracies.”

You can reasonably suppose that this was our government’s effort to disable the truth, especially as it conflicted with its own policy and activities — from supporting BLM riots to enabling election fraud to mandating dubious vaccines. Former employees of the FBI and the CIA were directly implanted in social media companies to oversee the carrying-out of censorship orders from their old headquarters. The former general counsel (top lawyer) for the FBI, James Baker, slid unnoticed into the general counsel seat at Twitter until Elon Musk bought the company late in 2022 and flushed him out. The so-called Twitter Files uncovered by indy reporters Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and others, produced reams of emails from FBI officials nagging Twitter execs to de-platform people and bury their dissent. You can be sure these were threats, not mere suggestions.

One of the plaintiffs joined to Missouri v. Biden is Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and professor at the Harvard Medical School, who opposed Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He was one of the authors of the open letter called The Great Barrington Declaration (October, 2020) that articulated informed medical dissent for a bamboozled public. He was fired from his job at Harvard just this past week for continuing his refusal to take the vaccine. Harvard remains among a handful of institutions that still require it, despite massive evidence that it is ineffective and hazardous. Like West Point, maybe Harvard should ditch its motto, Veritas, Latin for “truth.”

A society hostile to truth can’t possibly remain civilized, because it will also be hostile to reality. That appears to be the disposition of the people running things in the USA these days. The problem, of course, is that this is not a reality-optional world, despite the wishes of many Americans (and other peoples of Western Civ) who wish it would be.

Next up for us will be “Joe Biden’s” attempt to complete the bankruptcy of our country with $7.3-trillion proposed budget, 20 percent over the previous years spending, based on a $5-billion tax increase. Good luck making that work. New York City alone is faced with paying $387 a day for food and shelter for each of an estimated 64,800 illegal immigrants, which amounts to $9.15-billion a year. The money doesn’t exist, of course. New York can thank “Joe Biden’s” executive agencies for sticking them with this unbearable burden. It will be the end of New York City. There will be no money left for public services or cultural institutions. That’s the reality and that’s the truth.

A financial crack-up is probably the only thing short of all-out war that will get the public’s attention at this point. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it happened next week. Historians of the future, stir-frying crickets and fiddleheads over their campfires will marvel at America’s terminal act of gluttony: managing to eat itself alive.

*  *  *

Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 14:05

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One city held a mass passport-getting event

A New Orleans congressman organized a way for people to apply for their passports en masse.

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While the number of Americans who do not have a passport has dropped steadily from more than 80% in 1990 to just over 50% now, a lack of knowledge around passport requirements still keeps a significant portion of the population away from international travel.

Over the four years that passed since the start of covid-19, passport offices have also been dealing with significant backlog due to the high numbers of people who were looking to get a passport post-pandemic. 

Related: Here is why it is (still) taking forever to get a passport

To deal with these concurrent issues, the U.S. State Department recently held a mass passport-getting event in the city of New Orleans. Called the "Passport Acceptance Event," the gathering was held at a local auditorium and invited residents of Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District to complete a passport application on-site with the help of staff and government workers.

A passport case shows the seal featured on American passports.

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'Come apply for your passport, no appointment is required'

"Hey #LA02," Rep. Troy A. Carter Sr. (D-LA), whose office co-hosted the event alongside the city of New Orleans, wrote to his followers on Instagram  (META) . "My office is providing passport services at our #PassportAcceptance event. Come apply for your passport, no appointment is required."

More Travel:

The event was held on March 14 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. While it was designed for those who are already eligible for U.S. citizenship rather than as a way to help non-citizens with immigration questions, it helped those completing the application for the first time fill out forms and make sure they have the photographs and identity documents they need. The passport offices in New Orleans where one would normally have to bring already-completed forms have also been dealing with lines and would require one to book spots weeks in advance.

These are the countries with the highest-ranking passports in 2024

According to Carter Sr.'s communications team, those who submitted their passport application at the event also received expedited processing of two to three weeks (according to the State Department's website, times for regular processing are currently six to eight weeks).

While Carter Sr.'s office has not released the numbers of people who applied for a passport on March 14, photos from the event show that many took advantage of the opportunity to apply for a passport in a group setting and get expedited processing.

Every couple of months, a new ranking agency puts together a list of the most and least powerful passports in the world based on factors such as visa-free travel and opportunities for cross-border business.

In January, global citizenship and financial advisory firm Arton Capital identified United Arab Emirates as having the most powerful passport in 2024. While the United States topped the list of one such ranking in 2014, worsening relations with a number of countries as well as stricter immigration rules even as other countries have taken strides to create opportunities for investors and digital nomads caused the American passport to slip in recent years.

A UAE passport grants holders visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 180 of the world’s 198 countries (this calculation includes disputed territories such as Kosovo and Western Sahara) while Americans currently have the same access to 151 countries.

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