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A Quick Look at the December Markets

Published on: 12/17/18 3:55 PM

Category: Uncategorised

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Here’s a brief summary of how the stock markets have been doing so far this month.

  Flattening returns, as well as concerns about the trade war against China, caused the stocks to tumble on Tuesday. Larry Kudlow, the economic advisor under President Trump stated that there wasn’t a whole lot to show in terms of progress between the U.S. and China, which triggered investors to sell off most of their U.S. stocks.

U.S. Stocks

U.S. stocks changed hands between 20-25% more than the monthly average. The S&P 500 ETF was trading 74% above the average.   After trading on Tuesday, the S&P 500 dropped 3.23%, the Russell 2000 dipped 4.44%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.8%. Aftermarket trading continued into the overnight hours before Wednesday morning. All fixed income and trade of U.S. stocks was suspended because of a national day of mourning to honor former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

Tuesday wasn’t all bad for stocks as we saw Utility companies rise by 0.15% along with real estate which rose 1.26%. Consumer staples in the S&P 500 saw a slight improvement at 1.63%. Over 205 stocks reached 4-week highs in the index.   However, the overall sentiment of U.S. shares remains negative. The S&P 500’s advance-decline ratio is currently 0.07. There were 8 stocks in total that had 4-week lows.

Gabelli & Co. began coverage of Activision (ATVI) with a price target and BUY rating of $64. Considering that the annual meeting with this company is set to commence on December 10, this 37% uptick suggests that PT could be a good sign down the road.

Apple

News regarding Apple’s (AAPL) transfer of its marketing staff to their iPhone division helped sales on Tuesday, which indicates that the company is taking a more aggressive approach. Nevertheless, reorganization is rarely considered to be positive.   AutoZone (AZO) posted modest earnings during the first quarter of the year with store sales growth performing better than expected. This could mean good news for the auto parts industry.
Delta Airlines experienced renewed hope during the fourth quarter as their top-line growth reached 7.5% on Tuesday. They saw an increase of 4.2% more traffic in November while capacity increased by 3.8% on the company’s load factor of 85.8%.

Dollar General (DG)

Dollar General (DG) scaled back their earnings estimate for 2018 to between $5.85 and $6.05 from 6.11 USD which was what the market was expecting. While Dollar General’s sales growth remained comparable for the third quarter, a mix of calamity impact and trade war fears have lowered the company’s overall expectations.   Kroger (KR), in an unlikely alliance, plans to sell groceries through the Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) stores where they plan to set up “Kroger Express” sections. They do not plan to sell any items that will compete with products that carry the Walgreens name.

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