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Networking Stocks

Arista Networks Posts Strong Earnings: A HOLD for Now

Arista Networks (ANET) $275 post earnings, HOLD

Beats all around and guidance is raised as well.

For the period ending March 31, Arista earned an adjusted $1.99 per share as revenue rose 16.3% year-over-year to $1.57B.

A consensus of analysts expected the company to earn $1.74 per share on $1.55B in revenue.

Looking ahead, Arista Networks expects to generate sales between $1.62B and $1.65B, compared to estimates of $1.62B.

Adjusted gross margin is forecast to be around 64% while adjusted operating margin is expected to be around 44%.

Arista also said that it has finished its previous $2B share buyback program and its board of directors has approved an additional program to repurchase up to $1.2B worth of shares.

Arista’s biggest clients Meta and Microsoft are ramping up Datacenter buildouts so Arista should remain strong. Excellent company, but has been expensive for the past 6 months, holding for now, and will re-assess if the price falls.

Categories
Stocks

Novo Nordisk (NVO) Q1 Earnings: Strong Sales Growth and Raised Guidance Amidst Pricing Pressures

Novo Nordisk (NVO) $126 Maintaining Buy Recommendation.

No surprise, Novo too, increased its outlook like its competitor Eli Lilly.

Increased full-year outlook on the back of strong Q1 results, driven by increased demand for its GLP-1-based diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.

Q1- Blockbuster sales double The Danish drugmaker’s total Q1 revenue jumped 22% Y/Y to DKK 65.35B ($9.39B), as sales of its blockbuster drugs surged: Wegovy sales more than doubled to DKK 9.38B ($1.35B); Ozempic sales grew 43% in constant currency to DKK 27.81B (~$4B).

Novo (NVO) now expects sales growth of 19%-27% in constant currency this year, slightly higher than its prior guidance of 18%-26% growth. Operating profit growth is projected to be 22%-30% in constant currency, compared to its earlier forecast of 21%-29%.

The raised guidance reflects the expected volume growth of its diabetes and obesity drugs, both in the U.S. and internationally, although pricing pressures are expected to continue.

The company also continues to see supply constraints and resulting GLP-1 drug shortages and is spending in internal and external capacity to boost supplies.

Pricing pressure – Despite the upbeat outlook, Novo (NVO) fell 3% in early U.S. premarket trade on Thursday. To note, the stock has gained close to 25% so far this year. 

Novo Nordisk CFO Karsten Munk Knudsen said on a conference call with reporters that prices of the products were “slightly down” last quarter and that the company expects them to continue to decline this year, according to Reuters.

Novo (NVO) faces stiff competition in the weight-loss drug market from Eli Lilly (LLY), which has also seen surging demand for its GLP-1 drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro.

Categories
AI Stocks

Apple (AAPL) Q2 Earnings: Resilient Margins Amidst Sales Decline

source:apple

Apple (AAPL)

China sales are only 8% lower – this is better than expectations.

Japan and the rest of Asia-Pacific were much lower at 13% and 17% respectively.

iPhone sales down 10.4% – this could have been worse.

Services of course the biggest growth category with 14% growth.

The interesting thing here is that even as Apple keeps contracting in its product categories, margins get better with the higher margin services taking more share of the pie. Operating income dropped only 1.5% compared to the 4% revenue drop.

Apple (AAPL) $179 post-market, from $173.

  • Apple press release (NASDAQ: AAPL): Q2 GAAP EPS of $1.53 beats by $0.03.
  • Revenue of $90.8B (-4.3% Y/Y) beats by $190M.
  • Shares +2.4%.
  • Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.25 per share of the Company’s common stock, an increase of 4 percent. The dividend is payable on May 16, 2024, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 13, 2024. The board of directors has also authorized an additional program to repurchase up to $110 billion of the Company’s common stock.
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Market Outlook

Chair Powell’s Remarks: Navigating the Fine Line Between Employment and Inflation Amidst FOMC Decisions

Image Source: Nerd Wallet, Federal Reserve

From Chair Powell “I don’t see the stag nor the flation”

Fed FOMC meeting: Mixed bag, with wild gyrations in the S&P 500, which at one point during J Powell’s Q&A jumped to an intraday high of 5,096 from the low of 5,013.

The tenor though didn’t seem overly hawkish, instead, it seemed more cautious – clearly, they have a lot of work to do ahead and can’t take any chances either – a very fine tightrope to walk, Powell wants to stick to his dual mandate of keeping employment strong and inflation under control. He kept talking about balances – a difficult task, indeed,

The big positive seemed to be the reduction in quantitative tightening to $25Bn from $60Bn. The markets were expecting $30Bn

The Federal Open Market Committee did decide to ease its quantitative tightening by slowing the pace of its balance sheet runoff. The FOMC will reduce the monthly redemption cap on Treasury securities from $60B billion to $25B.

Let’s wait for the Friday payroll report.

Categories
Semiconductors Stocks

Qualcomm (QCOM) Q2 Earnings: Strong Results and Guidance Boost Shares 4.5%

Qualcomm (QCOM) Maintaining Buy on Declines

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) shares rose 4.5% in extended trading on Wednesday after the San Diego-based semiconductor firm offered up better-than-expected guidance on top of strong second-quarter results.

Auto is the big mover with a 35% increase in revenues. I’m also surprised that handsets held up considering Apple’s weakness.

Looking to the third quarter, Qualcomm said it expects to earn between $2.15 and $2.35 per share on an adjusted basis, with revenue forecast between $8.8B and $9.6B.

Analysts were expecting $2.16 per share in earnings and $9.05B in revenue.

For the period ending March 24, Qualcomm earned an adjusted $2.44 per share on $9.39B in revenue, as QCT sales rose 1% year-over-year to $8.02B. Revenue from handsets rose 1% year-over-year to $6.18B while automotive sales jumped 35% to $603M. Sales from (Internet of Things) IoT tumbled 11% to $1.243B.

Licensing revenue rose 2% year-over-year to $1.318B.

A consensus of analysts expected the company to earn $2.32 per share on $9.35B in revenue.

“We are pleased to report strong quarterly results, with EPS exceeding the high end of our guidance,” said Cristiano Amon, President and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. “We are excited about our continued growth and diversification, including achieving our third consecutive quarter of record QCT Automotive revenues, upcoming launches with our Snapdragon X platforms, and enabling leading on-device AI capabilities across multiple product categories.”

Categories
Stocks

Eli Lilly Q1 Earnings: Strong EPS Beat and Raised 2024 Guidance Amid Soaring Demand for Obesity Drugs

Eli Lilly (LLY) $790 Pre-Market – Up 6% – We’ve had a Buy on it and will continue to add on declines.

Lilly posted great results, but more importantly raised 2024 guidance by $2Bn (5-6%), leading to the pre-market jump! Obesity drugs have a huge demand, which they’re struggling to fill.

Eli Lilly press release (NYSE: LLY): Q1 Non-GAAP EPS of $2.58 beats by $0.09.

Revenue of $8.77B (+26.0% Y/Y) misses by $160M.

Revenue in Q1 2024 increased by 26%, driven by Mounjaro, Zepbound, Verzenio and Jardiance.

2024 full-year revenue guidance raised by $2.0 billion; reported EPS guidance raised $1.25 to be in the range of $13.05 to $13.55 and non-GAAP EPS guidance raised $1.30 to be in the range of $13.50 to $14.00 vs $12.46 Consensus.

Categories
Stocks

PayPal Q1 Earnings: Revenue Beat and Optimistic Outlook Despite Market Challenges

Paypal (PYPL) $70 Pre-Market up 7%.

Maintaining Buy, at this price there’s little downside and Paypal seems to be walking the talk with steady increases in revenue in an overcrowded market. Paypal is a mature company and getting 12-15% a year is pretty good.

Q1 revenue of $7.70B, topping the $7.52B consensus, fell from $8.03B in Q4 2023 and grew from $7.04B in Q1 2023.

Q1 Non-GAAP EPS of $1.40 beats by $0.18.

Guidance

Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share are expected to increase by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage compared to $3.83 (based on the new non-GAAP methodology) in the prior year.2024 is a transition year, righting a ship that had screwed up quite badly for the past three years and I think they should be able to do a decent job. 

Categories
Cloud Service Providers

Amazon Q1 Earnings: Solid Revenue and AWS Growth, But Lower Guidance for Q2

Source:Seeking Alpha

Source:Seeking Alpha

  • Amazon press release (NASDAQ: AMZN): Q1 EPS of $0.98 may not be comparable to consensus of $0.83.
  • Revenue of $143.3B (+12.5% Y/Y) beats by $750M – Positive.
  • AWS segment sales increased 17% year-over-year to $25.0 billion – That’s a good sized growth compared to Google Cloud and Azure since it’s so much bigger.
  • Second Quarter 2024 Guidance
  • Lower guidance – Net sales are expected to be between $144.0 billion and $149.0 billion vs. $150.09B consensus, or to grow between 7% and 11% compared with the second quarter of 2023. This guidance anticipates an unfavorable impact of approximately 60 basis points from foreign exchange rates. In the first quarter of 2024, the impact from Leap Year added approximately 120 basis points to the year-over-year net sales growth rate.
  • Operating income is expected to be between $10.0 billion and $14.0 billion, compared with $7.7 billion in the second quarter of 2023.

The stock is up about 3% to $180, but that’s not even recovered the 4% that it lost in the day.

Categories
Semiconductors

Super Micro Q3 Earnings: Strong EPS Beat, But Revenue Misses; Upgraded Guidance Boosts Outlook

source:supermarco

Super Micro Earnings Release. Source: Seeking Alpha

  • Super Micro Computer press release (NASDAQ: SMCI): Q3 Non-GAAP EPS of $6.65 beats by $1.08.
  • Revenue of $3.85B (+200.8% Y/Y) misses by $50M.
  • Guidance is better: 
  • For the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2024 ending June 30, 2024, the Company expects net sales of $5.1 billion to $5.5 billion vs $4.86B consensus, GAAP net income per diluted share of $7.20 to $8.05 and non-GAAP net income per diluted share of $7.62 to $8.42 vs $6.96 Consensus.
  • For the fiscal year 2024 ending June 30, 2024, the Company is raising its guidance for revenues from a range of $14.3 billion to $14.7 billion to a range of $14.7 billion to $15.1 billion vs $14.59B consensus and establishing guidance for GAAP net income per diluted share of $21.61 to $22.46 and non-GAAP net income per diluted share of $23.29 to $24.09.

The stock is down 1.5% to $846 after losing 3.5% during market hours.

Categories
Stocks

AMD Q1 Results: Strong Data Center Growth Amid Challenges in Gaming and Embedded Segments

AMD Quarterly Result

The Datacenter and client segments did well.

AMD’s struggles outside the Datacenter continue with gaming and embedded segments still dealing with inventory digestion, but they did come in within estimates and kept guidance in line with the previous one. 

Source: Seeking Alpha

  • Advanced Micro Devices press release (NASDAQ: AMD): Q1 Non-GAAP EPS of $0.62 beats by $0.01.
  • Revenue of $5.47B (+2.2% Y/Y) beats by $20M.
  • Record Data Center segment revenue of $2.3 billion was up 80% year-over-year driven by growth in both AMD Instinct™ GPUs and 4th Gen AMD EPYC™ CPUs. Revenue increased 2% sequentially driven by the first full quarter of AMD Instinct GPU sales, partially offset by a seasonal decline in server CPU sales.
  • Client segment revenue was $1.4 billion, up 85% year-over-year driven primarily by AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series processor sales. Revenue decreased 6% sequentially.
  • Gaming segment revenue was $922 million, down 48% year-over-year and 33% sequentially due to a decrease in semi-custom revenue and lower AMD Radeon™ GPU sales.
  • Embedded segment revenue was $846 million, down 46% year-over-year and 20% sequentially as customers continued to manage their inventory levels.
  • For the second quarter of 2024, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $5.7 billion, plus or minus $300 million vs. $5.69B consensus. At the mid-point of the revenue range, this represents year-over-year growth of approximately 6% and sequential growth of approximately 4%. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be approximately 53%.

The stock is down 3% to $153, after dropping 1% to $158 during market hours.