S&P 500 posts second best day of the year, Amazon and Meta rally, ASX to rise

US stocks rallied on better-than-expected megacap tech earnings, Meta posts its 7th best day since listing in May 2012 as ad demand recovers, Amazon also posts a double beat and smashes analyst expectations, US first quarter GDP slows to 1.1% but there's more than meets the eye and Friday Charts of the Week.

Let's dive in.

S&P 500 SESSION CHART

MARKETS

• S&P 500 had its second best day of the year and closed at session highs
• All US sectors were green amid upbeat results from Meta and Amazon
• Likelihood of 25 bp Fed hike in May sits at 83.9%, according to CME, following mixed US first quarter GDP print which was weaker-than-expected but noted some strong consumption trends
• Only 32% of S&P 500 companies are outperforming the broader index, the lowest levels since 1999, according to Jefferies

STOCKS

• Disney's streaming chief product officer let go in latest round of layoffs (Variety)
• Teck Resources scraps restructuring vote amid pressure from Glencore bid (FT)
• Stellantis offering voluntary buyouts to 33,000 US employees to cut costs (CNBC)
• Lyft to cut ~26% of jobs (CNBC)
• Gap to cut around 1,800 jobs in second round of layoffs (Reuters)
• Meta to merge ad product, business messaging, commerce departments in effort to flatten organisation (Reuters)

EARNINGS

It was a massive overnight session for earnings. Here are some of the main ones and spicy quotes from the results and/or earnings calls.

Meta (+13.9%): Beat EPS, Facebook daily active users and revenue expectations, surpassed 3bn people using at least one of its Family of Apps on a daily basis in March, reels and AI are helping to drive user engagement – with 40% of content across Instagram driven by AI. The stock is having its 7th best day since listing in May 2012.

• More layoffs: "So far we've gone through 2 of the 2 waves of restructuring and layoffs that we have planned for this year in our recruiting and our technical group. In May, we're going to carry out our third wave across our business groups.” – CEO Mark Zuckerberg
• Reel monetisation: "We continue to expect that Reels will become neutral to overall revenue by the end of this year or early next year.” – CFO Susan Li
• Ad demand: “Relative to Q4, we certainly saw stronger ad demand, including the impact of lapping the Ukraine war which began in Q1 22 & in particular, we saw an acceleration among advertisers in China, targeting users in other markets." – CFO Susan Li

Amazon (+4.6%, after hours +8.5%): Double beat, Q1 EPS was 31 cents vs. 21 cents expected, EBIT rose 30% to US$4.77bn vs. US$3.0bn expected, headcount fell 10% year-on-year to close the quarter at 1.465m.

• Ads and AWS: “Our Ad business continues to deliver robust growth … our AWS business navigates companies spending more cautiously in this macro environment … We like the fundamentals we’re seeing in AWS and believe there’s much growth ahead." – CEO Andy Jassy
• Cloud spend: “As expected customers continue to evaluate ways to optimise their cloud spending in response to these tough economic conditions in Q1 and we are seeing these optimizations continue into Q2 with April revenue growth rates about 500 bps lower than what we saw in Q1.”

Mastercard (+1.9%): EPS, purchase volumes and revenue beat thanks to ‘resilient consumer spending and the continued recovery of cross-border travel', downgraded its full-year revenue outlook.

• Consumer spending: “Consumer spending overall remains healthy, albeit with some recent moderation in domestic spending in the US in part due to lower tax refunds this year.”
• March and April trends: “Starting with switched volumes through the first three weeks of April we grew 17% YoY your down 1 ppt versus Q1. This reflects more difficult comps and some modest slowing in the U S due to lower tax refunds. This started in March and continued into April ..."
• Economic outlook: "... our base case scenario assumes consumer spending remains resilient and cross-border travel continues to recover. For the year, our outlook has improved modestly, reflecting our stronger-than-expected performance in Q1.”

Samsung (+0.8%): The South Korea-listed electronics giant posted revenue declines of 18% to US$47.6bn, operating profits nosedived 95% – the company’s worst operating profit since the first quarter of 2009.

• “The business environment in Q1 continued to deteriorate with overall consumer sentiment weakening due to rising concerns over an economic slowdown amid persistent global macro uncertainties and geopolitical issues.”
• “Demand is expected to gradually recover in 2H amid projections that customer inventory levels will have declined.”

Caterpillar (-0.9%): Double beat on resilient demand and pricing lower, sales rose 17% to US$15.9bn but operating profit jumped 47% US$2.7bn, flat year-on-year backlog a potential cause for concern.

• Waning backlog: “As [equipment] availability improves, order rates typically normalised as dealers can wait longer to place orders for long lead-time items.”

ECONOMY

• US Q1 GDP growth slows to 1.1% as business investment slumps (Bloomberg)
• China industrial profits continue to fall sharply amid producer deflation (Bloomberg)
• China post-covid growth off to a strong start but 2024 is less rosy (Bloomberg)
  
  

Deeper Dive

US GDP: More than meets the eye

US March quarter GDP rose 1.1% quarter-on-quarter, below the 2.0% expected and 2.6% in the previous quarter. The GDP reading is often skewed by volatile components such as inventory and net exports. There's more than meets the eye, and here are some key takeaways from Bank of America:

• "The headline print was much lower than our forecast and consensus expectations."
• "The details were positive, owing in part to the strength of the data at the turn of the year ... Consumption surged 3.7% QoQ ... offset by a 2.3 percentage point drag from inventories."
• "We expect momentum in the economy to continue to slow in 2Q as the lagged effects of tighter monetary policy and financial conditions start to take hold in other areas of the economy, including consumption."

Charts of the Week

Chris is on leave today, so I'll be providing some interesting charts. About my charting style: I prefer to look at stocks that aren't too extended from the 20-day moving average (red) and focused on looking at those in constructive bases. Oh I'm also a man of few words when it comes to talking about charts. 

Audinate (AD8): Has struggled to break out with conviction after moving out on 3 March. It has been in a choppy base. Will be interesting to see if US earnings can push this tech name higher.

Carsales (CAR): It's already started to move out of a 5-month base. Let's see if upbeat US tech earnings act as a tailwind over the next session.

Tourism Holdings Rentals (THL): A strong trender that's broken out like clockwork. My main criticism of this stock is that its pretty illiquid, which can make it hard to manage risk and/or substantial moves in share price.

Data#3 (DTL): A slow and steady grinder that's moving along its 20-day moving average with the occasional dip to the 50-day (green).

MMA Offshore (MRM): The chart is like a staircase. MMA Offshore has been a massive turnaround story, the stock has doubled in the last twelve months but still down around 20% in the last five years. The main question I ask myself about this setup is if the stock needs more time (aka right hand side) to set up for another breakout.