Alfred Gray

The US labour market report will be released on Friday at 14:30. The report, released on the first Friday of every month by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, includes several exchange rate-forming macroeconomic data.

The most closely watched data is the change in jobs excluding agriculture. Other macroeconomic data tracked are the unemployment rate, the underemployment rate,...
Read more

Best Buy $BBY, the US electronics retailer, released its 2Q results. Comparable sales fell 6.2% from a year ago.

Results

Company-wide comparable sales fell 6.2%, compared to a 12.1% decline a year ago and analysts' estimates of a 6.38% decline.

U.S. sales declined 7.1% year over year, primarily due to lower comparable sales, which fell 6.3%. This is the lowest decline since early...
Read more

The 3M $MMM board approved a $6 billion (133.9 billion CZK) settlement to resolve claims that its earplugs caused hearing loss among veterans. With this approval, the company shut down analyst estimates that were higher than the final settlement amount.

People connected to the matter told The Wall Street Journal that the settlement will be paid over multiple years. Shares of 3M...
Read more

California-based communications company Zoom reported results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2024. The results were above expectations and the company raised its outlook for fiscal year 2024. Analysts are positive on the results. Citi was expecting a stronger outlook and Piper Sandler is concerned about continued optimization and high competition.

2Q results

The company's...
Read more

Danish jewelry retailer Pandora reported 2Q 2023 results. Ebit and organic sales beat expectations and the company raised its organic sales guidance. The company also decided to expand its lab diamond sales into the US, UK and Canada.

2Q results

Organic sales grew by 5% against an estimate of 3.06%. Pandora achieved Ebitda of DKK 1.69bn against an estimate of DKK 1.7bn. Gross...
Read more

Barclays has identified several European stocks that it believes could benefit from an environment of falling inflation.

Disinflation - the slowing rate of inflation - is particularly tricky for some companies because their profits are not growing in line with cost pressures.

Inflation in the eurozone fell to 5.3% in July from a peak of 10.6% in October 2022. With interest rates...
Read more

Investors are always looking to outperform the market and are looking for stocks that deliver consistent long-term gains. And perhaps to the surprise of some, many non-tech stocks have outperformed the impressive 250% gain of the S&P 500 index over the past decade.

Three stocks - Builders FirstSource $BLDR, Live Nation Entertainment $LYV and Domino's Pizza $DPZ - have...
Read more

Results

Disney $DIS revenue increased 3.8% year-over-year. The company generates revenue from two segments, media and entertainment and parks, experiences and products

Media and Entertainment segment revenue decreased 0.8% year-over-year to $14 billion. Analysts were expecting USD 14.36 billion.

Parks, Experiences & Products segment revenue increased 13% year-over-year to $8.33...
Read more

Shares of Microsoft $MSFT fell as much as 4% in extended trading Tuesday after the software maker issued a quarterly revenue forecast that fell short of analysts' expectations.

Earnings: $2.69 per share versus $2.55 per share as expected by Refinitiv.
Revenue: $56.19 billion versus $55.47 billion as expected by Refinitiv.

On a conference call with analysts, Amy Hood, Microsoft's...
Read more

Pixie Dust, a Japanese company developing innovative personal care products and space technology, is in high anticipation. The long-awaited event, a listing on the U.S. stock exchange through an initial public offering (IPO), is scheduled for August 1. The move is a major step towards global expansion and will enable the company to reach new levels of success.

For many years,...
Read more

Netflix $NFLX said Wednesday that its quarterly revenue and subscriptions rose as efforts to curb password sharing took hold.

Here are the company's second-quarter figures compared with analysts' expectations, according to Refinitiv:

Earnings: $3.29 per share versus $2.86 per share expected.
Revenue: $8.19 billion versus $8.30 billion expected.

The streaming giant said it added 5.9...
Read more

Since bottoming last October, the S&P 500 Index has rebounded strongly from the bottom - in fact, it has risen approximately 25%. A rally of this magnitude meets the definition of a bull market, and some economists argue that we are experiencing just such a market.

But investment firm Wells Fargo comes with a warning. In a recent warning to investors, investment strategies...
Read more

This week's macroeconomic outlook: CPI (Eurozone), industrial production (USA), PPI (Czech Republic, Germany)

Investor focus will be on inflation in the Eurozone, industrial production in the United States and the producer price index to be reported in the Czech Republic and Germany.

Monday

Only the New York manufacturing index will be released during Monday, with the July index...
Read more

Nvidia $NVDA, the largest semiconductor company, is seeking to be a key investor in the IPO of a UK chip design company.

SoftBank, Arm's current owner, is going ahead with its plan to float Arm on the stock market through an initial public offering. Nvidia was forced to halt its planned $66 billion acquisition of Arm as it was stopped by antitrust authorities.

Nvidia is now...
Read more

Early stage companies that have huge growth potential and a large addressable market.

By definition, micro-cap stocks are stocks of companies that trade with a value between $50 million and $300 million. It goes without saying that investing in micro-cap stocks is a high-risk play. However, I would not hesitate to allocate a small portion of my portfolio toward these stocks.

Mult...
Read more