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- 👉 The Investing Week Ahead: 1/8/24
👉 The Investing Week Ahead: 1/8/24
18.8% APY & BlackRock...
Welcome to your new week.
Before we dive into everything you need to know about The Investing Week Ahead — a quick word from Percent:
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Key Earnings Announcements:
Giants like BlackRock and UnitedHealth end the week with a bang.
Monday (1/8): Accolade, Commercial Metals, Helen of Troy, Jefferies
Tuesday (1/9): Acuity Brands, Aehr Test Systems, Albertsons, AZZ, MSC Industrial, PriceSmart, Saratoga Investment Corp, TD Synnex, Tilray, WD-40
Wednesday (1/10): KB Home, Richardson Electronics
Thursday (1/11): Infosys
Friday (1/12): Bank of America, BlackRock, BNY Mellon, Citi, Delta, JPMorgan Chase, UnitedHealth Group, Wells Fargo
What We’re Watching:
BlackRock’s last earnings report was critiqued for having a sharp drop in net inflows, but also was praised for blowing past profit estimates. The main takeaway was the company’s appetite for M&A activity.
Analysts are eager to see if BlackRock truly ramped up its acquisition activity during the quarter — something the company is known to do during slower times for other parts of its business.
UnitedHealth’s earnings reports always have ripple effects throughout the healthcare landscape. For example, UNH announced that that there would be elevated medical costs in 2023 due to increased procedures for seniors.
This led to insurers (like Humana) to see stock drops, and medical device makers (like 3M) to see a slight bump (at the time).
Analysts use UNH as a healthcare bellwether — and this week is no different.
Investor Events / Global Affairs:
One of the biggest conferences is sure to bring headlines, and don’t forget about the shipping industry woes.
CES Conference
One of the most important conferences of the year returns to Las Vegas this week. Whether it’s Amazon, Google, John Deere, NBCUniversal, Samsung, Qualcomm… or ANYONE in between — CES is a headline-generating conference.
Suez Canal Shipping Update
If you need a quick geography reminder — the Suez Canal is one of the most important means of transportation in the world. It allows shipments to move between the Mediterranean and Red Seas — avoiding the need to go all the way around Africa.
Last month, MSC — the largest container shipping company — said that it was avoiding the Red Sea entirely.
Last week, we learned that Danish shipping giant Maersk was indefinitely pausing transit through the Red Sea after one of their container vessels came under attack via missiles and four boats attempting to board it with weapons.
The Houthi militia in Yemen (backed by Iran) is receiving blame for the increase in attacks.
The decision for companies ultimately boils down to this… do you want to bear the cost of soaring insurance premiums and potential catastrophe — or travel an additional 4,000+ miles around Africa?
This adds ~10 days in either direction and burns an unspeakable amount of fuel.
It might seem boring — but keep an eye on this.
“We are beginning to see the weaponization of the global supply chains.” — Marco Forgione, Director General of the Institute of Export and International Trade
College Football Playoff Final
The college football national championship is tonight — with #1 Michigan taking on #2 Washington.
College football has seen explosive growth in the media and NIL space — but this graphic shows just how far away it is from the NFL’s dominance of American television.
Major Economic Events:
Credit updates and inflation insights.
Monday (1/8): Consumer Credit
Tuesday (1/9): Trade Deficit
Wednesday (1/10): Speech by NY Fed President Williams, Wholesale Inventories
Thursday (1/11): Consumer Price Index
Friday (1/12): Producer Price Index
What We’re Watching:
We loved this Forbes Advisor breakdown of 2024’s CPI considerations:
“The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta breaks down the overall CPI measure into a flexible CPI and a sticky CPI. In November 2023, the flexible portion of the CPI was down 0.3% on a 12-month basis, but the sticky portion of CPI was still up 4.7% from a year ago.
Flexible CPI inflation peaked in March 2022, but sticky CPI inflation peaked nine months later in December 2022 and has predictably been declining much more slowly than overall CPI inflation in 2023.
Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial, says sticky inflation could be a thorn in the Fed’s side in 2024.
“Although inflation continues to ease, the Fed will still not declare total victory as the stubborn, so-called ‘sticky’ inflation is untangling at a slower than expected pace,” Krosby says.”
If you’re starting your investing journey or are interested in buying T-bills yielding 5% or more, consider visiting Public.com.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or recommendation for any investment. The content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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