New
Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE)
index data for the month of March has hit the tape. It’s one of the prime inflation prints informing Fed decisions on monetary policy — the next of which comes just next week. Headline PCE last month came in at +1.4%, ahead of the +0.6% initially reported for February.
Year over year PCE managed to hit a 40-year high: +6.6%, above the originally reported +6.4% for February. Stripping out volatile food and energy products, the “core” read on March PCE came in at +5.2% — a tad lower than the +5.3% expected and the +5.4% initially reported the previous month. This illustrates that inflation was clear and present in March, but a large chunk of it was due to food and energy prices.
Real Personal Spending reached +0.2%, swinging to a positive from -0.1% expected and -0.4% in February. As we saw in the initial read on Q1 GDP earlier this week, the consumer appears to be doing his/her part in keeping the economy strong. Clearly, ratcheting down energy costs — which subsequently affect food costs due to deliveries, etc. — would go a long way toward staunching inflation. A 50 basis-point interest rate hike next week from the Fed will also play a part in this.
Exxon Mobil
XOM
missed estimates on its Q1 earnings this morning, with $2.07 per share coming up short of the $2.25 expected in the Zacks consensus. Much of this has to do with a -$3.4 billion write-off in doing its part to boycott Russian oil. Revenues in the quarter beat estimates by +1.8% to $90.5 billion, and is miles ahead of the year-ago $59.15 billion in revenues. Shares are flat on the news; the stock is +42% year to date.
Colgate-Palmolive
CL
posted only its second earnings miss in the past five years — though three of the previous four quarters just came in-line with expectations — with 74 cents per share shy of the 80 cents anticipated. Sales in the quarter of $4.4 billion were slightly shy of expectations, but slightly above the year-ago tally. Shares are down -5% on the miss, adding to the -5% year to date for the Consumer Staples giant.
Bristol Myers-Squibb
BMY
took out estimates on both top and bottom lines for the third time in the past four quarters: earnings of $1.92 per share easily surpassed the $1.74 expected, on $11.65 billion in revenues, which topped estimates by +3.5%. However, reduced earnings estimates for the Big Pharma company for the full year are taking down shares -5% ahead of the opening bell.
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