Morning Preview: January 29, 2025

Early Look

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Futures

Up/Down

%

Last

Dow

-6.00

0.02%

45,024

S&P 500

4.75

0.08%

6,101

Nasdaq

79.00

0.37%

21,660

 

 

After bouncing back sharply on Tuesday following Monday’s sharp declines, U.S. futures are looking slightly higher ahead of a big day of news and earnings.  The FOMC is widely expected to hold rates steady at the Jan. 28-29 meeting at 2:00 PM, the first pause since they began the rate-cut cycle in September, with Powell’s press conference at 2:30. Also, three of the “Mag7” tech giants are reporting tonight after the close with META, MSFT and TSLA (AAPL tomorrow night). Stocks tumbled on Monday following China AI DeepSeek competition/cost fears but rebounded nicely on Tuesday led by tech, though most other S&P sectors declined with utilities, staples and REITs falling the most. Chips are getting another boost overnight after better quarterly order numbers from ASML after earnings. Meanwhile the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed roughly 3,000 straight points the last few weeks and is back within roughly 165 of its all-time highs. In Asian markets, The Nikkei Index gained 397 points to 39,414, the Shanghai Index remains closed for Lunar New Year holiday. Chinese markets closed from 28 Jan thru 4 Feb for Lunar New Year holiday; Hong Kong/ Singapore close today. In Europe, the German DAX is surging 172 points to 21,603, while the FTSE 100 is up 25 points to 8,559. The Bank of Canada is widely expected to trim its key policy rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday.

 

Market Closing Prices Yesterday

  • The S&P 500 Index jumped 55.42 points, or 0.92%, to 6,067.70.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 136.77 points, or 0.31%, to 44,850.35.
  • The Nasdaq Composite spiked 391.75 points, or 2.03%, to 19,733.59.
  • The Russell 2000 Index advanced 4.84 points, or 0.21% to 2,288.86.

Economic Calendar for Today

  • 7:00 AM ET MBA Mortgage Applications Data
  • 8:30 AM ET                  Advance Goods Trade Balance for December
  • 10:30 AM ET                Weekly DOE Inventory Data
  • 2:00 PM ET FOMC Rate Policy Meeting – no changes expected (remain 4.25%-4.5%)

Earnings Calendar:

  • Earnings Before the Open: ADP AIT ASML AVT BLFY CFFN CPF DHR EAT EXP EXTR FLEX GD GLW GPI HES HESM LII MHO MNRO MSCI NAVI NDAQ NSC OTIS PB PGR SBSI SF SLGN SMG TMUS VFC VIRT WNC
  • Earnings After the Close: AMP BHE BRKL BSET CALX CCS CHRW CLB DLB ETD FIBK HWKN IBM JBSS LBRT LEVI LRCX LSTR LVS META MSFT MTH MXL NFG NLY NOW RHI RJF SEIC SIGI TER TSLA TTEK TWO URI WASH WDC WHR WM WOLF

 

 

Macro

Up/Down

Last

Nymex

-0.37

73.40

Brent

-0.54

76.95

Gold

1.20

2,768.70

EUR/USD

-0.0029

1.0399

JPY/USD

-0.06

155.46

10-Year Note

-0.014

4.534%

 

World News

  • A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s directive to halt payments of federal grants and loans to various programs. US District Judge Loren AliKhan issued the ruling late on Tuesday, shortly before the freeze was set to take effect.
  • Australia’s Q4 CPI was a touch lower than expected. Overall inflation was 0.2% QoQ, 2.4% YoY, down from 2.8% YoY in Q3 and vs 2.5% YoY% consensus.

Sector News Breakdown

Consumer

  • Brinker’s (EAT) Q2 adj EPS $2.80 vs. est. $1.80; Q2 revs rose 26% y/y to $1.36B, vs. est. $1.24B; System-wide comparable sales +24.2% vs. +4.4% y/y, Brinker Co-owned comp sales +27.4% vs. +5.2% y/y, Chili’s Comparable Restaurant Sales 31.4% vs. 5% y/y, Maggiano’s Comparable Restaurant Sales 1.8% vs. 6.7% y/y, and Chili’s Domestic Comparable Restaurant Sales 30.8% vs. 5.1% y/y; raises FY25 revs view to $5.15B-$5.25B, above prior view of $4.70B to $4.75B.
  • Starbucks (SBUX) Q1 EPS $0.69 vs est. $0.67 on revs $9.4B vs est. $9.305B, US comps -4%, N. Am. comps -4%, China comps -6%, Int’l comps -4%, total comps -4% vs est. -5.3%.
  • Stride Inc. (LRN) Q2 EPS $2.03 vs est. $1.95, adj EBITDA $160.4Mm vs est. $145.5Mm on revs $587.2Mm vs est. $569.25Mm; guides Q3 revs $585-600Mm vs est. $571.88Mm and adj op in $130-140Mm vs est. $116.88Mm; sees FY revs $2.32-2.355B vs est. $2.287B and adj op Inc $430-450Mm vs est. $401.38Mm.
  • Dowlais shares rise in Europe after American Axle and Manufacturing (AXL) said it will buy GKN Automotive owner Dowlais in a cash-and-stock deal, valuing the London-listed firm at about 1.16 bln pounds ($1.44B).
  • Eagle Materials (EXP) Q3 adj EPS $3.59 vs. est. $3.96; Q3 revs $558.0M, vs. est. $575.41M; said the excessive rainfall affected sales volume in their Cement and Concrete and Aggregates businesses, although achieved higher sales volume in Gypsum Wallboard and Recycled Paperboard.

Energy, Industrials and Materials

  • Nextracker (NXT) shares rise over 20% this morning as Q3 adj EPS $1.03 vs est. $0.59 on revs $679Mm vs est. $650.69Mm; guides FY adj EPS $3.75-3.95 up from prior $3.10-$3.30 and vs est. $3.27; shares of other renewable names moved in sympathy ARRY, FSLR.
  • Packaging Corp. (PKG) Q4 adj EPS $2.47 vs est. $2.53 on sales $2.146B vs est. $2.13B; guides Q1 EPS $2.21 vs est. $2.41

Financials

  • Chubb Inc. (CB) Q4 core EPS $6.02 vs. est. $5.45; Q2 net premiums written rose 4% y/y to $12.06B below ests and net premiums earned rose 5.9% y/y to $12.60B (Bloomberg est. $12.75B); Q4 property & casualty combined ratio 85.7% vs. 85.5% y/y and loss and loss expense ratio 59.4% vs. 59.8% y/y.
  • Hanmi Financial (HAFC) Q4 EPS $0.58 vs est. $0.52 on NII $53.4Mm vs est. $53.4Mm; raises cash dividend 8% to $0.27/share.
  • Lending Club (LC) Q4 revs $217.2M vs. est. $206.4M; Total assets of $10.6B rose 20% to $8.8B y/y in the prior year; Book value per common share was $11.83, vs. $11.34 y/y; loan originations increased 13% to $1.85B, compared to $1.63B y/y; guides Q1 new originations $1.8B to $1.9B vs. est. $1.98B.
  • Renaissance Holding (RNR) Q4 operating EPS $8.06 vs. consensus $7.00; Q4 Combined ratio of 91.7% and adjusted combined ratio of 89.4%; Q4 net investment income of $428.8 million; up 13.8% from Q4 2023.
  • Trustmark (TRMK) Q4 EPS $0.92 vs. est. $0.83; raises quarterly dividend 4.3% to $0.24; Q4 net interest income $158.4M.
  • UMB Financial (UMBF) Q4 adj EPS $3.39 vs est. $2.26 on NII $268.974Mm vs est. $259.47Mm, NIM 2.57%.

Healthcare

  • 89bio Inc (ETNB) prices public offering of 21.7M shares at $8.75 per share.
  • Akero Therapeutics (AKRO) 5.333M share Secondary priced at $48.00.
  • Danaher (DHR) Q4 EPS $2.14 vs. est. $2.16; Q4 revs $6.54B vs. est. $6.49B; sees Q1 revenue down low-single digits and says sees FY25 revs up 3%.
  • Henry Schein (HSIC) shares rise after the WSJ reported private equity firm KKR (KKR) has taken a large stake in the company and plans to work with it to improve its operations. KKR plans to announce a deal that includes increasing its stake to 12% with the option to buy up to an additional 2.9% in the future https://tinyurl.com/ycyf3nuy
  • Moderna (MRNA) downgraded to neutral from buy at Goldman Sachs citing limited visibility on the revenue stream for the company’s respiratory vaccine business.
  • Stryker (SYK) Q4 adj EPS $4.01, vs. est. $3.87; Q4 revs $6.44B vs. est. $6.36B; sees FY25 adjusted EPS $13.45-$13.70, above consensus $13.47 and guides organic net sales growth to be in the range of 8.0% to 9.0% for 2025; Q4 orthopedics & spine net sales $2.55B, vs. est. $2.57B; CFO to retire.
  • Zimmer Biomet (ZBH) said it would acquire medical device company Paragon 28 (FNA) for about $1.1 billion to expand its portfolio of orthopedic surgical devices. ZBH will make an upfront payment of $13.00 per share in cash, which represents an 8.3% premium to Paragon’s closing price on Tuesday.

Technology, Media & Telecom

  • ASML Holding (ASML) Q4 bookings of 7.09B euros ($7.39B), easily topping ests of 3.99B euros and up from 2.63B euros in Q4, saying a boom in AI drove demand for the company’s most advanced equipment; reported fourth quarter net income of 2.7 billion euros on sales of 9.3 billion euros; repeated a 2025 sales forecast of 30-35 billion euros, which represents growth of 7-25% from 28.3 billion in 2024
  • Ali Baba (BABA) extends gains after releasing a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence model, claiming model surpasses highly acclaimed DeepSeek-V3.
  • F5 Networks (FFIV) Q1 adj EPS $3.84 vs est. $3.36 on revs $766Mm vs est. $715.41Mm; guides Q2 revs $705-725Mm vs est. $702.73Mm and adj EPS $3.02-3.14 vs est. $3.21; sees FY revs +6-7% vs est. +4.69% and adj EPS +6.5-8.5% vs est. +6.73%.
  • Logitech (LOGI) Q3 EPS $1.59 vs. est. $1.36; Q3 revs rose 7% y/y to $1.34B, vs. est. $1.25B; raises FY25 revenue view to $4.54B-$4.57B from $4.39B-$4.47B (est. $4.46B and boosts FY25 operating income view to $755M-$770M from $720M-$750M.
  • Manhattan Associates (MANH) Q4 adj EPS $1.17 vs est. $1.06 on revs $255.8Mm vs est. $253.12Mm; guides FY revs $1.06-1.07B vs est. $1.136B and adj EPS $4.45-4.55 vs est. $4.91.
  • Qorvo (QRVO) shares jump as Q3 adj EPS $1.61 vs est. $1.20 on revs $916.3Mm vs est. $901.52Mm, adj gr mgn 46.5%; sees Q4 revs $850Mm vs est. $841.15Mm and adj EPS $0.90-1.10 vs est. $0.86.
  • Synaptics Incorporated (SYNA) announced it has accelerated its Edge AI strategy by signing a definitive licensing agreement with Broadcom that includes Wi-Fi(R) 8, ultra-wideband (UWB), Wi-Fi 7, advanced Bluetooth(R) , and next-generation GPS/GNSS products and technology for IoT and Android(TM) ecosystem.

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Market commentary provided by Hammerstone Markets, Inc, a firm separate from and not affiliated with Regal Securities. Regal Securities has not participated in the creation of the content, and does not explicitly or implicitly endorse the content.