Market scorecard
US markets rallied on Friday, driven by renewed optimism for potential interest-rate cuts later in the year. In April, employers only added 175 000 jobs, lower than the 240 000 expected, and the unemployment rate slightly increased to 3.9%. It was a case of bad news being good news. The positive momentum lifted all three major stock indices, resulting in weekly gains overall.
In company news, Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) surged 12% following good numbers and a positive update on the progress of its injectable weight-loss drug MariTide. On the flip side, Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE), a travel booking business, took a hit, plummeting 15% after its quarterly results failed to meet investor expectations.
On Friday, the JSE All-share closed up 0.50%, the S&P 500 rose 1.26%, and the Nasdaq was 1.99% higher. Beautiful!
One thing, from Paul
Before Apple's quarterly results for the period to end-March came out on Thursday last week, the market's expectations were low. There were dire reports of smartphone market share losses in China, to cheaper local brands like Huawei. The consensus was that iPhone sales were going to be muted.
In fact, the results were very satisfactory, with revenue from iPhones of $45.9 billion for the quarter. Services revenue was excellent, and MacBook sales were strong. Earnings forecasts for future quarters were upbeat.
Apple announced a record stock buy-back programme worth $110 billion. Capex spending remains modest. The double-digit growth of iPhone sales in India, which is also where more of them are being manufactured, bodes well.
Product development is ongoing. Updated iPads will be launched at an event this week, and from the iPhone 16 onwards, it's likely that AI tools will run on all Apple devices, without an internet connection.
Apple shares (NASDAQ:AAPL) traded 6% higher on Friday, and closed at $183. For reference purposes, the all-time high is just below $200 per share.
Even though Tim Cook wants to buy back your shares at the current level, don't even consider selling them.
Michael's musings
Oil is central to the global economy, and the price per barrel is a leading indicator of future inflation. The price of petrol went up last week because oil prices have been trending higher thanks to tensions and uncertainty in the Middle East.
We have moaned about OPEC's negative global impact in the past. The cartel artificially inflates the oil price to benefit a handful of oil-producing nations. Thankfully, their influence on oil prices has been diluted by the US fracking boom and now only produces around 30% of global oil output. The US is not an OPEC member.
Last week, it emerged that some US frackers could have colluded with OPEC to keep production low and inflate prices. The FTC alleges that Scott Sheffield, founder and longtime CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD), exchanged hundreds of text messages discussing pricing, production and oil market dynamics with officials at OPEC. The allegations came to light as Exxon (NYSE:XOM) was in the process of buying Pioneer.
Part of the allegations are that Sheffield tried to influence other US frackers to keep production low, and he even went so far as to trying to get rail operators to limit the amount of oil transported out of certain oil fields. If found guilty, Sheffield would probably go to jail. Collusion is still illegal in some parts of the world.
Bright's banter
Recently revealed court records from the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Google unveiled some intriguing details. Google's parent company, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), shelled out a hefty $20 billion to Apple in 2022 to secure its position as the default search engine on iPhones.
According to Bloomberg, Google also pays Apple a significant 36% share of search ad revenue. This relationship, central to the government's monopoly allegations against Google, has drawn attention.
Interestingly, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) also sought to woo Apple away from Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), dangling a tempting offer of 90% of ad revenue to entice a switch to Bing. I personally still won't "Bing it."
Signing off
Asian markets are in the green this morning as sentiment appears to be improving. Benchmarks rose in India, mainland China, and Hong Kong.
Markets in Japan and South Korea are shut for the Children's Day holiday which was yesterday but is being observed today.
US equity futures are little changed pre-market. The Rand is trading at around R18.52 to the US Dollar.
This week, a slew of companies including Palantir (NYSE:PLTR), BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX), Disney (NYSE:DIS), Ferrari (NYSE:RACE), Uber (NYSE:UBER), Airbnb (NASDAQ:ABNB), Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM), and Roblox (NYSE:RBLX) are set to report their first-quarter earnings.
Have a good week.