That profit-taking session we’d been keeping our eyes open for, after three days of robust index growth? It came today. Only the Dow spent any meaningful time in the green during Thursday’s regular trading, finishing just about exactly spot-on even. The S&P 500 dropped -0.72% on the day, while the Nasdaq got hit harder: -1.71%. The small-cap Russell 2000, which had been outperforming the larger indexes of late, fell -2.27% today.
Market participants mostly paid no mind to the post-Covid low Initial Jobless Claims numbers out this morning, reaching sub-200K for the first time in 22 months. After the opening bell, relatively in-line
Wholesale Inventories
for October to +2.3% was a fine development — especially considering supply-chain narratives of the past few months — while
Q3 Real Household Wealth
and
Real Domestic Nonfinancial Debt
came in lower: +1.5% and -2.7%, respectively, from revised-higher figures from the previous quarter.
Costco
COST
impressed investors after the closing bell, reporting fiscal Q1 figures well ahead of expectations: earnings of $2.98 per share swept past the $2.59 expected and $2.29 reported in the year-ago quarter. Sales of $50.36 billion also came in better than the $50.02 billion in the Zacks consensus. E-commerce rose +14% for the quarter, and comps, ex-gas and foreign exchange rates, grew +15%. Shares in late trading are up +1.5% on the news, +37.9% thus far year to date. This is the discount wholesaler’s third-straight earnings beat.
Oracle
ORCL
, that “Old Faithful” tech stock with no earnings misses over the past five years, once again outperformed expectations — by a solid dime on earnings to $1.21 per share on $10.36 billion in sales, bettering the $10.21 billion expected. The company also announced it has increased its authority for a share repurchase plan by $10 billion. Markets took the news quite favorably, jumping +6.5% initially on the news in the late trading session.
Lululemon Athletica
LULU
also put up an impressive beat on earnings last quarter — $1.62 per share outpaced the $1.39, on $1.45 billion in revenues that topped the Zacks consensus $1.43 billion. The specialty retailer grew total comps +27% in the quarter, +32% just stores. Gross Margins rose higher than expected to +57.2%. LULU shares are up +1.5% in late trading on the news, after trading down -8.8% over the past month.
Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated
Broadcom
AVGO
also put up solid beats on its top and bottom lines after the close this day: earnings of $7.81 per share on $7.41 billion in quarterly revenues surpassed the $7.75 per share and $7.35 billion expected. Like Oracle, it has also authorized a $10 billion share buyback program. And revenues for next quarter got a nice boost in guidance to $7.6 billion. Shares are up +5.4% in the late session, +37.2% year to date.
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