The Buzz on Business for February 21st, 2024

Still in shock from last week’s bad news on the inflation front, traders returned from the President’s Day holiday yesterday and quickly realized that Magnificent Seven member NVIDIA reports earnings after the bell today. Could we see even more bad news? A case of the nerves set in, and stocks took it on the chin, on decent volume as a result.

Stock Market Report

We had one of the mechanics from the Ministry of Truth check all the light bulbs to ensure the green ones weren’t out at the closing bell yesterday. Nothing but a sea of red numbers staring out at us on the Giant Quote Machine!

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average didn’t have too bad a day. It was buoyed by Walmart, which we’ll get to in just a minute. But it was still down 64 points. That’s two-tenths of a percent and closed at 38,564.
• The rest of the equity markets were a little worse for the wear. The S&P 500 was down six-tenths of a percent. That’s 30 points, and it closed back below 5,000 at 4,976.
• Speaking of bad days, the NASDAQ Composite was down nine-tenths of a percent. That’s 145 points and closed at 15,631.
• The small-cap Russell 2000 likewise was down. It was off eight-tenths of percent closed at 2,008.

Bond Market Report

Interest rates were also down. Of course, that means bonds were up.

• The 2-year treasury closed at 4.612%. That’s off four basis points.
• The yield on the 20-year was off less than a tick, and it closed at 4.566%.

Oil, Gold, and Bitcoin

• Oil was off $1.07 and closed at $77.11 a barrel.
• Gold was up $11.80, and a troy ounce now changes hands at $2,036.
• Like all currencies, Bitcoin trades 24/7/365, and it had an exciting, somewhat volatile holiday weekend. But it ended up about where it began. At 4:00 pm Friday, Bitcoin stood at $52,039. At 4:00 pm on Tuesday, it traded at $52,059, up $20.00.

Walmart Exceeds Expectations

Regular readers may recall our report on Walmart’s earnings three months ago. At that time, Walmart said its most significant business challenge for the fourth quarter was deflation. Given the inflation numbers we got last week, that seems kind of cute. Walmart guided sales lower as a result, stating that sales in the fourth quarter would not exceed the previous year’s level.

Well, they were wrong. Walmart blew out its number. Wall Street was expecting. $1.64 per share Walmart earned $1.80, but it was the revenue number that we were looking at. Wall Street expected sales of $171 billion. It came in over $173 billion instead.

Interestingly, it was $10 billion above the same quarter last year. Give me some of that deflation, will ya?

NVIDIA on Tap

And this afternoon, we get NVIDIA—the growth-iest of all the growth stocks and one that is priced for perfection. Again, regular listeners may recall the market was on edge three months ago, just as it was yesterday. NVIDIA shocked to the upside, and the stock went to the moon. Wall Street is expecting earnings of $4.58 a share on revenue of $20.37 billion.

We shall see! Everyone here at the Ministry of Truth will be huddled around the Telescreens at 5:00 pm Eastern Time this afternoon. All you need to do is keep it right here.