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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.

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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. 

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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.

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Stocks

Tesla Surges 14% on FSD Approval in China: Key Win for EV Giant Amidst Rising Competition

Tesla (TSLA) $193 up 14%

Good news for Tesla – Musk’s China visit seems to have paid off. The markets and the street love it and it’s great for those of you who had the patience to hold on to it. 

One of the key reasons for the approval seems to be the collaboration with Baidu, plus China was very keen for a win. Nonetheless, this is good for the market. Two heavyweights Apple and Tesla are seeing support.

Read on from Barron’s today.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-stock-price-news-china-elon-musk-8476fa2e?mod=BRNS_ENG_NAS_EML_BULLETIN_AUTO_NAH

Tesla Stock Soars on FSD Approval in China. 

3 Reasons the News Is a Big Deal.

According to Barrons “The win does a few things for Tesla. For starters, better driver-assistance products can mean more demand for Tesla vehicles in China. Second, it demonstrates the company can navigate complicated government regulations related to driver-assistance technology. And third, it shows that Tesla has increasing confidence in the quality of its self-driving car technology.”

“We expect this announcement to lead to a near-term uptick in FSD attach rates—which we currently model at about 10%—and improve the offering longer-term,” wrote Baird analyst Ben Kallo in a Monday report. Attach rates refer to how many people buying Tesla vehicles also buy FSD. “We also view this announcement as a potential pathway for Tesla to follow for entering new markets.”

“While the long-term valuation story at Tesla hinges on FSD and autonomous, a key missing piece in that puzzle is Tesla making FSD available in China which is now a done deal,” added Ives. “This is a key moment for Musk as well as Beijing at a time that Tesla has faced massive domestic EV competition in China along with softer demand.”

To help win Chinese approval for FSD, Musk needed to assuage regulators’ concerns about data security risks. To that end, he agreed to use navigation and mapping functions provided by Chinese firm Baidu BIDU 5.77%, the Journal said.

Baidu’s American depositary receipts, or ADRs, were up 4.1% in early trading at $104.65 apiece.

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Stocks

April PMI Manufacturing Index Falls Below 50: Signs of Economic Contraction

U.S. PMI Manufacturing unexpectedly slips into negative territory in April

April PMI Manufacturing Index: 49.9 vs. 52.0 consensus and 51.9 in March. The services PMI did, too, slip to 50.9 (vs. 52.0 expected) from 51.7 a month ago, though it remained in positive territory, with the index still above 50.

The composite PMI (flash estimate) came in at 50.9, down from 52.1 in the previous month, signaling business activity in the U.S. expanded at a slower pace during the month, in the wake of signs of weaker demand.

The group’s measure of employment slid 3.2 points to 48, reflecting shrinking services payrolls and slower growth at manufacturers. The composite index of prices received, meanwhile, pulled back from a 10-month high.

“The more challenging business environment prompted companies to cut payroll numbers at a rate not seen since the global financial crisis if the early pandemic lockdown months are excluded,” Williamson said.

The decline in the employment measure suggests companies see current capacity as sufficient to handle demand. Order backlogs remained in contraction territory during the month.

New business at service providers shrank for the first time since October, with some firms indicating higher borrowing costs and still-elevated prices were limiting demand.

The overall index for services activity decreased to the lowest level in five months, while the manufacturing PMI showed a slight contraction.

“Further pace may be lost in the coming months, as April saw inflows of new business fall for the first time in six months and firms’ future output expectations slipped to a five-month low amid heightened concern about the outlook,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

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Stocks

Tesla Q3 Misses Expectations: EPS and Revenue Fall Short as Auto Sales Decline

Tesla Non-GAAP EPS of $0.45 misses by $0.05, 

Revenue of $21.31B misses by $950M

Reasons for the lower revenue: Reduced vehicle average selling price (ASP) YoY (excl. FX impact), an unfavorable product of the mix,  and a decline in vehicle deliveries, partially due to the Model 3 update in the Fremont factory and Giga Berlin production disruptions.

A negative FX impact of $0.2B1 + growth in other parts of the business + higher FSD revenue recognition YoY due to the release of the Autopark feature in North America.

Beneath all that  – Total revenues are lower by 9% YoY, and auto revenues are down 13% YoY.  Energy and service revenues are keeping the flag flying still.

The stock is holding up at $154 – I guess it wasn’t worse than expected.

Categories
Insurance Stocks

Globe Life (GL): Navigating Short Selling Allegations and Market Volatility

Globe Life (GL) $53

Category – Financial Services – subcategory- insurance

There is a short-selling operation going on by Orso Partners, alleging insurance fraud and of course the usual denials, and the short covering, which caused the 10% bounce premarket.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/11/globe-life-shares-plummet-50percent-after-short-seller-accuses-company-of-insurance-fraud.html

Historically, though higher mortality rates, mostly pandemic related, was one of the main reasons for the drop in 2022 income.

While the balance sheet is relatively OK, debt levels are elevated, which is not ideal in a high-interest rate environment. 

There is a lot depending on declining or increasing mortality rates, and this could cause a lot of volatility in its stock.

That said, the company and analyst estimates are calling for 8% earnings growth in the next 3 years, and if the fraud claims are bogus and just short seller manipulation, the valuation is quite good. It has been a profitable company in the last 5-7 years.

But without enough information on the validity of Orso’s fraud claim it would be difficult to make a call. 

Categories
Stocks

 Solventum Has No Revenue Growth Prospects

Solventum (SOLV) $67

The valuation is reasonable, the price to sales ratio is just 1.5x with a $12Bn Market Cap and $8.2Bn in sales.

Solid profit-making company with 25% operating margins and an EPS of $6.25, which gives it a decent multiple of 67/6.25 or just 11 – this is a discount to comparable health companies for sure.

The big problem is the lack of revenue growth, Solventum has been struggling at $8.2MBn in sales for the last three years, and even post spin-off is guiding to zero growth. That is also a bit difficult to swallow with all their segments – MedSurg, dental, health information and drinking water filtration, having 4-6% annual growth opportunities. There seems to be an execution problem.

Pre-spin off this was a well-entrenched 70 year business within 100,000 global customers, with presence in 75% of US hospitals and 50% international sales

3M has saddled it with $7.7Bn of debt so there is an interest burden of $400Mn which will dent profitability, till they reduce it in the next two three years.

The low valuation is definitely interesting, but we don’t want to walk into a value trap, where the stock just stagnates because of zero growth. Right now, there needs to be better execution or at least a strategic plan to start growing again. 

It might make sense to buy a small quantity to take advantage of the low valuation and then add more with better growth visibility.

Categories
Stocks

AMD’s Resurgence in the AI Market: Is It Time to Invest?

source

AMD has been mostly relegated to second tier status because of Nvidia’s massive leap in AI related data center revenue, which catapulted it from $27Bn in sales the previous  year to $57Bn in 2023, this year and an estimated $90Bn in 2024.

However, AMD is a scrappy competitor and I have a lot of respect for Dr Lisa Su, who’s transformed this company from a commodity CPU/GPU semis supplier to game consoles and PC’s to a solid competitor in the data center segment. Most of Intel’s market share losses can be traced to AMD’s strengths!.

While Nvidia is likely to continue getting a lion’s share of AI GPU revenue for at least the next 2-3 years and in fact when AMD guided to about only $2Bn in AI/GPU revenue for 2024, during their last earnings call in Oct,  I felt it was too little to buy AMD at that time. Besides the hardware, Nvidia’s moat is CUDA, its operating system, which really makes its GPU’s so much more powerful. I didn’t see AMD getting much traction on that account.

However, that was a mistake as it turned out to be a conservative estimate.

This is from UBS analysts:

Recent channel and customer checks confirmed their view that AMD has a firm demand commitment for more than 400,000 MI300A/X units for 2024, the analysts said. This is a number that is fairly consistent with where the analysts have seen demand since last summer but they have been wary of double ordering and unsure of supply.

The analysts added that after having gone back to several customers and suppliers, they are more confident that these units are real and AMD now has sufficient Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate capacity to do over 10% the volumes of Nvidia (NVDA).

*Even assuming a very conservative average selling price (which could be as high as $20,000 or more for some customers), this suggests $5B for data center GPU revenue is a pedestrian target for this year. Even this implies AMD exits the year at a *run-rate which could be close to $10B per year* with AMD still likely to grow GPU units quarter-over-quarter through much of 2025, the analysts added.

AMD has already moved up from $135 this month to $177 and it lost a little bit after Intel’s poor guidance. I’m going to start buying this slowly – knowing fully well that I’m late but I do believe in its long term story and the $10Bn run rate is an excellent number – If we believe in the AI story and the resulting surge in its building blocks, there there is no way only one company, Nvidia can supply to the entire market – AMD will get a decent foothold. I’m anticipating +$8 in earnings two years out, that should be priced at 30x or $240, which is still 36% higher than today’s price, nothing to be sneezed at.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) stock rose 1.8% in Friday premarket trading after the bank said it expects 2024 revenue to increase to about $80B-$81B from $78.5B in 2023, driven by gains in treasury and trade solutions, securities services, a rebound in investment banking and wealth, and lower partner payments in retail services. The revenue outlook excludes markets and divestitures.

Net interest income, excluding markets, is expected to decline modestly as global interest rates fall. Citi (C) expects mid-single-digit loan growth, driven by its card business and modest operating deposit growth, it said in its earnings slides.

Citibank’s adjusted earnings also beat expectations, but they expect only 2% revenue growth for 2024 and a modest decline in NII. Their allowance for losses was $397 Mn so no dire warnings there either.

Wells Fargo also beat adjusted earnings and revenue expectations but is more pessimistic for 2024. It expects net interest income to be about 7%-9% lower than 2023’s $52.4B level on lower interest rates, an expected decline in average loans, and further attrition in Consumer Banking and Lending deposits. Their provision for credit losses was $1.28B, higher than the other two but below expectations. *Q4 net loan charge-off, as a percentage of average total loans, of 0.53% vs. 0.36% in the prior quarter and 0.23% a year ago.*

Percentage of loans charged-off is a key measure to monitor; in Wells Fargo’s case it was double of the previous year’s – will need to keep a strict watch on this.