Brennan and jon fortt at post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange stocks rallying today with that trade deal reaching phase one in the books. Banks, earnings season capped off nicely by Morgan Stanley dow closes above 29,000 yesterday for the first time and we see s p 500 up over 3,000 for the first time guys, good morning. Chris, the question ive got this morning is where do you find opportunity in a market thats been roaring like this . You look at the growth fund, also small caps are small caps a place where investors should be paying more attention . They arguably havent run quite as much. I spent the last two days meeting with about 30 companies, small to midcap. And the excitement in the hallways at the conference were quite good the opportunities are very specific, though i think you have to look at the end markets. You know, data center recover will be better this year 5g weve talked about, infrastructure and devices but we also see Software Security, clearly after the iran situat
Some gains at the open expectations are high for the chip makers results after the bell watch apple. The midst of a sevenday win streak with a gain of nearly 13 so far this month. Lets begin, though, with target down sharply on this Quarterly Earnings miss and a sales decline. The retailer did say customers cut their spending on discretionary and grocery. Company did reaffirm fullyear guidance, jim. They guided comps down and came in 3. 7 when you talk to brian, hell be insistent that this wasnt anything that you should find unexpected the thing that im struggling with is he talks about the consumer, in tepid terms walmart didnt walmart told about a consumer thats in good shape and price rollbacks. We didnt get price rollbacks from target until this week. So, im beginning to wonder whether target is out of position versus walmart. Where walmart is really starting to walmart plus represent a bargain. Walmart can also subsidize sales because they have this terrific advertising business t
We got this weak Gross Domestic Product number, just 1. 6 growth anemic and a surging inflation number connected to the gdp up 3. 7 . Bad combo. Which is why the dow tumbled 375 points s p lost. 46 . Nasdaq dropped. 64 . Ive got to tell you it was much uglier at one point today. The dow was down almost double where it went out. As we heard all day about the Slower Growth and higher inflation and that meant the dreaded term stagflation and that environment is toxic for stocks the house of pain on top of that one of the markets greatest leaders Meta Platforms got crushed today. I mean, just annihilated not because of its earnings which were stellar but because it committed a huge amount of spending most of it directed toward generative Artificial Intelligence whats bad for the meta goose, though, is good for the nvidia and broadcom gander, which is up 29 points and 37 points respectively as theyre going to get a huge chunk of Capital Expenditure budget i still believe in meta, more on th
Nasdaq up 0. 11 . Theres something important we need to know right here and right now. We have to think about, do activist investors help create wealth or do they destroy it are they a force for good for you or force for bad these are the questions we need to grapple with given that just this morning Procter Gamble narrowly defeated an attempt by nelson peltz to get a board seat putting an end to a bitter proxy fight that weve all been involved with and talked about here now, look. This is very much case by case thing. There are some scorch earth activists who specialize in creating ill will. Nothing else i think those days are largely behind us. At least when it comes to smart activists who know what theyre doing. Let me lay out some individual examples to show you what i mean about this Important Group of investors and what they mean for your pocketbook. Lets start with Procter Gamble, the gigantic Consumer Products company make no mistake, this is a Great American enterprise. Procte
We begin on dow 19,000 watch. President elect donald trump lays out his first 100 days in the form of a video. Says hes going to abandon the tpp trade pact on day one in the white house. Amazon could be getting into the lucrative live sports business. Reports say they have held talks with the nba, mlb and the nfl for live game rights. But first up, stocks hitting those record highs, the dow is within 44 points of 19k, the s p just two points from 2200. Small caps making history as well. The russell at an alltime high and in the midst of its first 12session winning streak in 13 years, jim. Technicians love this setup over the next few weeks. More than 700 stocks hit an alltime high. Thats very positive. The groups that have been involved in this rally are broad based, they dont seem to just be all oil or all tech or all bank, its really a huge part of the s p. We saw yesterday the kind of a catchup trade with a lot of the oils. Weve got cold weather, a potential opec deal, a president w