Monday, November 25, 2024

Understanding the markets this week: May 26, 2024

How a stock split works

A stock split breaks existing shares into smaller pieces. So if you happen to previously owned one Nvidia share value $1,000, you’ll now have 10 Nvidia shares value $100 each, keeping the entire value at $1,000. With stock splits, firms be certain that investors can easily buy and sell individual shares.

The huge hype behind Nvidia has resulted in a price-to-earnings ratio of over 55x. For comparison, tech giants Microsoft and Apple currently have ratios of 36x and 29x, respectively. Conventional logic says Nvidia’s growth has to get back on course sooner or later – but this sustained period of record profits is tough to argue with right away. Nvidia made 18% more cash in the primary quarter of 2024 than it did within the fourth quarter of 2023, and a whopping 262% more cash than it did in the primary quarter of 2023.

To put this growth into perspective, Nvidia’s market capitalization has increased by greater than $1.1 trillion since January 1, 2024. That’s larger than the entire market capitalization of Canada’s 14 largest firms– and that’s just this yr’s growth!

Founder and CEO Jensen Huang sounded optimistic when he explained: “The next industrial revolution has begun – companies and countries are working with Nvidia … to create a new product: artificial intelligence.”

Nvidia bought back $7.7 billion value of its own shares in the primary quarter and announced a dividend increase from 4 cents to 10 cents per share (before the split).

Frankly, I feel it’s only a matter of time before competitors start closing the gap on Nvidia and a few of those juicy profit margins begin to shrink. However, there may be loads of money to be made in the method. Clearly, investors are willing to pay a premium for Nvidia’s future profits.

Tough week for US retail

Despite record-breaking news for Walmart last week, the primary quarter was not a very good one for the foremost American retailers. All numbers below are in US dollars.

US retail earnings highlights

Quarterly reports from three major retailers:

  • Target (TGT/NYSE): Earnings per share of $2.03 (versus a forecast of $2.06) and revenue of $24.53 billion (versus an estimated $24.52 billion).
  • Macy’s (M/NYSE): Earnings per share of $0.27 (versus a forecast of $0.15) and revenue of $4.85 billion (versus an estimated $4.86 billion).
  • Lowe’s (LOW/NYSE): Earnings per share of $3.06 (versus a forecast of $2.94) and revenue of $21.36 billion (versus an estimated $21.12 billion).

All three of those retail giants cited overburdened consumers because the most important reason for his or her mediocre quarterly results. Target CEO Brian Cornell explained These low sales figures reflected “continued weak trends in the convenience categories.” Compared to its competitor Walmart, far fewer customers come into Target stores to purchase groceries, so the buyer shift to convenience items appears to be hitting the corporate harder.

Marvin Ellison, CEO of Lowe’s, expressed similar thoughts on the present retail situation. saying“Interest rates may fall, but consumer confidence must still rise.” Macy’s CFO and COO Adrian Mitchell even went to date as to say The team expects consumers to “continue to be under pressure for the rest of the year.”

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