Today is Thursday, April 6, 2023.
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Costco Same-Store March Sales
Costco Wholesale (Nasdaq: COST) posted mixed sales results for March, causing the stock to slide by 1.90% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
The Good: Net sales reached $21.71 billion in March, an increase of 0.5% from last year.
The Bad: Same-store sales dropped by 1.1%, including a 1.5% decline in U.S. stores. Sales for e-commerce plummeted by 12.7%.
Details: Costco said its same-store March sales would have shown positive growth if not for changes in gasoline prices and foreign exchange.
Bigger Picture: Costco’s mixed sales results come one day after rival Walmart (NYSE: WMT) reiterated its 2024 Q1 and full-year guidance. Walmart’s stock dropped 0.44% in after-hours trading due in part to Costco’s results.
Stock Price: Costco’s stock is up 9% in 2023, including a 2% increase in the last 30 days.
Final Thoughts: Costco’s struggles might suggest retail industry problems. If the economy slows and consumer spending drops, then retail stocks could be in trouble.
Notables
Notable Earnings Today: Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ), Lamb Weston (NYSE: LW), Levi Strauss (NYSE: LEVI), Applied Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: APLD), RPM (NYSE: RPM), WD-40 (Nasdaq: WDFC), ClearSign Technologies (Nasdaq: CLIR).
Notable IPOs Today: Top KingWin Ltd Class A Ordinary Shares (Nasdaq: TCJH), VCI Global Limited Ordinary Share (Nasdaq: VCIG), VanEck Robotics ETF (Nasdaq: IBOT).
Notable Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns Ending Today: WeatherFlow-Tempest (StartEngine).
Notable Economic Events Today: Jobless Claims (8:30 a.m. ET).
AbbVie Lowers Its EPS Guidance
Pharmaceutical company AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) lowered its financial guidance on Wednesday, causing the stock to drop by 1.87% in after-hours trading.
Details: AbbVie expects its full-year earnings per share to be between $10.62 to $11.02 and its first-quarter earnings per share to be between $2.31 to $2.41; both were below estimates.
Powering the Story: The company blamed an acquired IPR&D and milestones expense of $150 million as the reason behind the lower profit forecasts.
Also: Results for the quarter that ended on March 31 have not been finalized. These are just preliminary estimates.
Background: It has been a mixed quarter for AbbVie. Although the company had some of its drugs move into new phases, some analysts have downgraded the stock.
Stock Price: AbbVie is down less than 1% in 2023, but is up 3% in the past 30 days.
Final Thoughts: AbbVie is slated to report earnings on April 27.
Dogecoin’s Twitter Surge Comes to an End
Most cryptocurrency prices were flat on Wednesday, except for Dogecoin, which dropped by 5%.
Background: Dogecoin surged on Monday after Twitter owner Elon Musk replaced the social media platform’s logo with the Dogecoin symbol of a dog.
Details: Now it seems that investors are taking their winnings as the price of the crypto fell back to reality.
Final Thoughts: This drop was expected because of the volatility associated with Dogecoin.
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Trends to Watch
Signal: Bond-market’s most deeply inverted gauge is pointing to ‘large slowdown in economic growth’ and ‘deep recession’ (MarketWatch)
I Ram Legend: Ram electric pickup truck can go 500 miles on a charge, says Stellantis (CNN)
Can’t Buy Loyalty: American Airlines scraps traditional frequent flyer award chart in dynamic pricing shift (CNBC)
Bigger in Texas: Tesla more than tripled its Austin gigafactory workforce in 2022 (TechCrunch)
Up and Down: Bitcoin, Ether Momentum Traveling Divergent Paths (CoinDesk)
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