Market scorecard
The US market pullback continued on Friday, pushing the S&P 500 into a correction after its worst two-week drop this year. The broader index was mostly unchanged for the day but turned lower towards the end of the session, while the Nasdaq Composite saw some gains. The best big cap performers were Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) (up 9.3%), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) (up 6.8%), and Meta (NASDAQ:META) (up 2.9%).
In company news, Google's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) earnings disappointed, sending the stock down almost 10% for the week, its worst performance since November. Michael looks at those results in more detail below. Elsewhere, Sanofi (EPA:SASY) plunged 19% after the drug company scrapped its 2025 earnings outlook and said it plans to unbundle its consumer healthcare business.
On Friday, the JSE All-share closed down 0.68%, the S&P 500 lost 0.48%, but the Nasdaq was 0.38% higher.
Michael's musings
Google (also known as Alphabet) reported numbers on Tuesday night. They posted solid revenue and profit numbers but frustratingly, the share price dropped. The problem was that cloud computing only grew by 22%, instead of the 30% mark that analysts had been expecting.
For the quarter, revenue rose by 11% to $76.8 billion and profits by 42% to $19.7 billion. By far the most important part of the business is selling advertising, which briefly contracted earlier this year as some companies cut ad spend to save cash for a recession that never arrived. In a sign of strength, advertising grew 11% for the year, and YouTube did even better with 12% growth.
The market is worried that Google will be beaten by Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing. If Google does fall behind, it will be very difficult to recover market share. It is worth noting that the cloud division is now bigger than YouTube with revenues of $8.4 billion, versus YouTube's $7.9 billion. The profits from Google Cloud are still very meagre though, generating an operating income of only $266 million.
Given Google's early entry into AI, many AI start-ups currently use Google Cloud for their operations, and as that industry scales, that will be a huge tailwind for Google.
Looking ahead, there are a few questions about this business. What will the outcome be of the current anti-trust case? Will Google be able to keep up in the cloud computing race? How will AI impact it's search business? We back the Google management team though. Google is well entrenched in the global online ecosystem, and has the resources, cash and personnel, to compete in every related field.
One thing, from Paul
Here in South Africa we are over the moon, happy about being crowned rugby world champions again. Elsewhere, things seem bad. The market is down in New York; news headlines have darkened in recent weeks, in the Middle East and elsewhere; winter is coming in the northern hemisphere.
The US market peaked when third quarter GDP was estimated at over 5% in August. It went down after that because strong growth increases the probability of another inflation wave, which increases the risk that the Fed stays too tight for too long.
In fact, US inflation has been trending strongly in the right direction all year and is likely to continue moderating. That was confirmed again last week by updated data. So I believe that the Fed is done.
So, just be patient, things are bound to improve soon. Stand by for a Santa Claus rally. That's my forecast.
Byron's beats
I was taking a closer look at the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) numbers again late last week and this graph below got me excited. It shows the accumulated miles driven by FSD (Full Self-Driving) Beta, which has now surpassed 500 million miles.
The more cars Tesla sell, the more miles they will drive. This gives Tesla and their AI capabilities unparalleled data which is crucial for the success of creating fully autonomous vehicles.
Tesla also mentions that they have just initiated the Dojo training supercomputer which supports the Autopilot functionalities. The Dojo consists of a 10 000 GPU cluster of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) H100's. Brilliant.
Bright's banter
Former NBA star Earvin "Magic" Johnson has achieved billionaire status, according to Forbes. Johnson owns small stakes in various sports teams, including the NFL's Washington Commanders, MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers, the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks, and MLS's LAFC.
His 'Magic Johnson Enterprises' has been involved in multiple industries: movie theaters, fast food franchises, real estate, healthcare, and life insurance.
Notably, Johnson's controlling stake in EquiTrust, a life insurance provider based in Des Moines, Iowa, makes up the majority of his personal net worth, which Forbes estimates at $1.2 billion.
Johnson becomes the fourth athlete Forbes has identified as a billionaire, alongside Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and LeBron James. Unlike the others, Johnson did not accumulate massive income from his playing career.
Signing off
Asian markets are not looking too bad this morning. Benchmarks fell in Japan but rose in mainland China and South Korea. Hong Kong is a bit lower as Chinese listed banking shares weighed on the index. The oddly-named Bank of Communications (HK:3328) was down as much as 6% after its profits for the third quarter fell, while ICBC dropped 1% on mixed results.
This evening, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is hosting an online event called 'Scary Fast', where the company is expected to launch a new range of Macs.
This is another important week for US company earnings. Some of the standouts for us are Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Stryker (NYSE:SYK), Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN), Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY), and Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa).
US equity futures are edging higher in early trade. The Rand is at around R18.81 to the US Dollar.
It's the start of another week. Have a good one.