AAPL Jun 2022 250.000 put
| Previous close | 18.00 |
| Open | 17.55 |
| Bid | 16.35 |
| Ask | 19.50 |
| Strike | 250.00 |
| Expiry date | 2022-06-17 |
| Day's range | 17.55 - 17.55 |
| Contract range | N/A |
| Volume | 3 |
| Open interest | 744 |
- TechCrunch
Apple allocates its first $400M from $2.5B commitment to address California's housing crisis
Apple announced this morning it's allocating more than $400 million toward affordable housing projects and other homeowner assistance programs in California, as a part of its earlier multiyear pledge of $2.5 billion to address the state's housing crisis and homelessness issues. The funding is expected to support thousands of Californians with first-time homebuyer assistance or new, affordable housing units, Apple says. Projects launching in 2020 include 250 new units of affordable housing across the Bay Area -- the first affordable housing developments funded in a private-public partnership with Housing Trust Silicon Valley.
- Motley Fool
Dow Jones Jumps 500 Points as Apple Stock Soars, Disney to Close Hong Kong Park
Apple is carving out a new all-time high, and Disney is being forced to shut down its Hong Kong resort.
- Bloomberg
Amazon Rally Pushes Market Value $30 Billion Beyond Microsoft
(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. shares rallied on Monday, and the advance lifted the company’s market capitalization above Microsoft Corp. for the first time in more than a year.The stock rose as much as 4.5% in its fourth straight daily advance, giving the e-commerce and cloud-computing company a valuation of about $1.66 trillion, or about $30 billion more than Microsoft’s market capitalization. According to an analysis of Bloomberg data, Amazon last exceeded Microsoft in size in February 2019.Recent gains in Amazon have come amid a growing consensus that it will be a major winner from the pandemic, which has accelerated a shift to online retail and fueled demand for cloud-computing services. Earlier, Cowen raised its price target to the highest on the Street, citing the continued “demand surge” from the pandemic, “in particular as the U.S. faces staggered and sometimes halted re-openings.”Among U.S. stocks, Amazon’s rally means it is second only to Apple Inc. in size; the iPhone maker’s market cap leads at $1.73 trillion. A rally in mega-cap tech and internet stocks has also resulted in Google-parent Alphabet Inc. eclipsing $1 trillion in market cap recently.Globally, the list is topped by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, which currently has a market cap of about $1.78 trillion.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool
Q2 Won't Be as Bad for HP and Apple as Feared -- For One (Not) Surprising Reason
The second quarter's marketwide earnings are going to be rough -- that's not in dispute. The only question is: How bad? Whereas only the final month of the first quarter of 2020 was crimped by coronavirus lockdowns in the United States, the entire three-month stretch we just wrapped up has been mired by the pandemic.
- Zacks
PoolCorp, Simon Property Group, HP, Dell Technologies and Apple highlighted as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
PoolCorp, Simon Property Group, HP, Dell Technologies and Apple highlighted as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day
- Bloomberg
Big Tech Drives the Stock Market Without Much U.S. Help
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The stock market has been on a tear for the past three months, and Big Tech gets much of the credit.But how can this possibly be when the coronavirus has inflicted so much damage on the U.S. economy, with the highest unemployment since the Great Depression and gross domestic product headed into a black hole? And anyway, it's not as if tech is untethered from the economy.Yet, maybe tech isn't all that dependent on growth in the U.S. Compared to the rest of the world, and for the first time in ages, many wealthy industrialized countries are doing better -- and in some cases, much better -- than the U.S. Nations such as Japan, South Korea and Germany not only have managed to contain the pandemic, but their economies are well ahead of the U.S.'s into their re-openings. For the past five years, a small group of tech stocks has had an outsized influence on U.S. markets. Two-thirds of the gains in the S&P500 have been driven by just six U.S. companies -- Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google (Alphabet) -- the so-called FAANG stocks -- and Microsoft. An index of those six stocks is up more than 62% since the March lows, while the S&P 500 is up about 40%.Overseas markets may very well be a key reason shares of the biggest U.S. tech companies are powering higher. These tech companies derive a surprisingly large share of their revenue from foreign markets. According to Standard & Poor's, companies in the S&P 500 derived 42.9% of their sales from overseas markets in 2018 (2019 data is not yet available).But this share is much higher for the big tech companies: Apple generated more that 55% of its revenue outside the U.S. in the year ended in September; in some quarters, overseas accounted for as much as 60% of revenue. International accounted for 54.5% and 53.8% of Facebook and Alphabet revenues, respectively. For Microsoft and Netflix, the split is about half domestic and half overseas (49.0% and 49.4%, respectively). Amazon is the Big Tech exception, generating a sizable majority of its revenue within the U.S.What make overseas so important, though, is because that's where the growth is. Netflix had revenue growth of 21% in 2019, but the domestic side was a laggard at just 7%. Facebook, meanwhile, now has more users in India than in the U.S., with Indonesia and Brazil growing fast. For Alphabet, Asia and Latin America have produced faster revenue growth than the U.S.It isn't a coincidence that these companies that are so reliant on the rest of the globe have seen their stock prices do well. The Covid-19 numbers suggest that much of the world is way ahead of the U.S. not only in terms of managing the pandemics, and that their economies are recovering faster.As of July 9, globally, there were more than 12 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 and almost 550,000 deaths. In the U.S. those figures were 3 million confirmed cases and 132,000 deaths. This data is a report card on how well the country is managing the pandemic: The U.S. has 4.2% of the world’s population, but 25% of the infections and 24% of the deaths.And yet, even this national incompetence has worked to the advantage of the Big Tech companies. All they require of their customers is a computing device and a network connection; users are not limited by geography -- either domestically or internationally. Nor do users need to have a physical presence at an office.Some companies are well positioned to survive the pandemic lockdown, thriving during an era of remote work and social distancing. Many of these same companies are well positioned to benefit from the rest of the world’s economic recovery. As it turns out, tech companies can profit both from the U.S.'s shutdown and a recovering Europe and Asia. It is a very effective one-two punch. It explains so much of the market’s gains.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Barry Ritholtz is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool
Remote Work and Remote Learning Are Driving a Surge in PC Demand
The coronavirus pandemic is creating a boom in demand for traditional PCs, due to a wholesale shift to remote work at many companies across multiple industries. In addition, educational institutions have also moved toward remote learning solutions.
- Motley Fool
Apple Stock Is Up 30% This Year. What's Next?
While work-from-home stocks like Zoom Video and Peloton Interactive may have been getting much of the attention in financial media as the highfliers of the current market rebound, the world's most valuable publicly traded company has been regularly hitting new all-time highs as well. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) now has a market capitalization of $1.65 trillion, with shares trading above $380. On the flip side, the stock's strong price action may have attracted some new investors who are wondering whether there's still upside ahead for the tech giant.
- Motley Fool
1 Reason I’ll Never Sell Garmin
Having a great balance sheet isn't the only reason to buy a stock, but it's a good place to start. Garmin (NASDAQ: GRMN), which makes high-tech outdoor recreation devices, has such a balance sheet. It is debt-free, with $2.6 billion in cash and marketable securities as of the end of the most recent quarter.
- Yahoo Finance
Disney+'s 'Hamilton' gambit pays off, giving platform a big boost: Data
‘Hamilton’ is continuing to soar following its Disney+ debut with 80% of users tuning in to watch the Broadway phenomenon, according to research complied by 7Park Data.
- Motley Fool
3 Top U.S. Stocks to Buy in July
FedEx (NYSE: FDX), Lululemon (NASDAQ: LULU), and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) are all quietly making moves that set them up nicely for the future. Interestingly, FedEx and Lululemon have been able to adapt to COVID-19 realities and increase business, while Intel works behind the scenes to deliver advanced technology today. In 2019, FedEx cut ties with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), causing many on Wall Street to shake their heads.
- Yahoo Finance
Chamath Palihapitiya: Facebook, Amazon, Google, face modern-day trustbusting
Targeting big tech is 'more a reflection of the moral temperature of society than it is on anything necessarily nefarious that these tech businesses are going to do or have done,' says Chamath Palihapitiya.
- Bloomberg
LinkedIn Sued for Spying on Users With Apple Device Apps
(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn programmed its iPhone and iPad applications to divert sensitive information without users’ knowledge, according to a class-action lawsuit.The apps use Apple’s Universal Clipboard to read and siphon the data, and can draw information from other Apple devices, according to the complaint filed Friday in San Francisco federal court. The privacy violations were exposed by Apple and independent program developers, according to the suit.Developers and testers of Apple’s most recent mobile operating system, iOS 14, found LinkedIn’s application was secretly reading users’ clipboards “a lot,” according to the complaint. “Constantly, even.” Apple’s clipboard often contains sensitive information users cut or copy to paste, including photos, texts, emails or medical records.“LinkedIn has not only been spying on its users, it has been spying on their nearby computers and other devices, and it has been circumventing” Apple’s clipboard timeout, which removes the information after 120 seconds, according to the suit.LinkedIn spokesman Greg Snapper said the company is reviewing the lawsuit. Erran Berger, head of engineering at LinkedIn, said in a July 2 tweet that the company had traced the problem to a code path that performs an “equality check” between contents on the clipboard and typed text. “We don’t store or transmit the clipboard contents,” he added.The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Adam Bauer of New York City, who says he routinely used the LinkedIn App on his iPhone and iPad.The suit seeks to represent a class of users based on alleged violations of federal and California privacy laws and a breach of contract claim.LinkedIn’s information collecting was reported earlier this month by outlets including the Verge and Forbes.The case is Bauer v. LinkedIn Corp., 20-cv-04599, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).(Updates with LinkedIn spokesman in fifth paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Homes Can Shelter India’s China Dream After Covid
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- India quite literally needs to put a roof over its China dream.It took a pandemic and a lockdown to highlight the precarious existence of the country’s blue-collar workers. Left without jobs and shelter, an estimated 30 million — roughly a fifth of the urban labor force — have gone back to their villages, with many completing long, hazardous journeys on foot when trains and buses shut down.No wonder, then, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government cleared a plan this week to build inexpensive rental dwellings in cities for 350,000 workers.Giving rural migrants an incentive to return is crucial to restoring economic activity to pre-Covid levels. But there’s an opportunity here to do much more. For India to industrialize, rethinking the housing situation will be as important as freeing the urban poor from large medical bills and helping them build retirement savings. If the country of 1.3 billion people wants to be a factory to the world — the next China — it must start by giving workers low-cost living quarters.India is sitting on an inventory of more than 1.3 million unsold homes. Mumbai-based property researcher Liases Foras estimates that roughly half of these units could face delays and other execution risk; prices on nearly nine out of 10 apartments may have to be cut by 5% to 15% to hook wary buyers. That’s billions of dollars in lost revenue.It may not be possible to repurpose this stock as worker accommodation. Nevertheless, as losses on pricey condominiums crystallize for struggling developers and stretched financiers, they can be made more bearable by tax breaks, cheap government land and other fiscal support for affordable rental housing — a new revenue stream. Assured of a decent rental yield, investors will be encouraged to finance this new asset class. Institutional capital will return to depressed real estate. Construction will absorb surplus manpower and create badly needed wage income. Cheap urban rents will bring India the full benefit of labor mobility, which isn’t constrained by Chinese-style hukou, or city registration requirements. Yet the rapid urbanization that turned East Asia into an exporting powerhouse and created a foundation for mass consumption has eluded the country. Young men migrate to cities for economic reasons, and return to their villages in old age. Apart from cultural factors, availability and cost of housing is the main reason why women and children stay behind, making urbanization in India both slow and rather “masculine,” as economist Chinmay Tumbe, who has studied migration trends since the 1870s, has put it.While the gender ratio of large cities is no longer as skewed as it was in the early 20th century — 500 to 600 women for 1,000 men — it’s still a lopsided 868 in Delhi. For Surat, a major diamond-cutting and textile center on India’s western coast, the ratio is even more unbalanced at 756. Surat is still an exception in that it has a lot of manufacturing. A peculiar facet of rural-urban migration in India, according to Tumbe, is that most of the workers end up in service-industry jobs. Creaky infrastructure, infuriating red tape, occasionally overvalued currency and lack of meaningful free-trade arrangements have held back the share of manufacturing in the economy to 16% — a modest rise from 5% in 1901. Back then, British colonialists had kept India under-industrialized so they could sell their wares in a market that produced little of its own. Now, it’s a small urban elite — whose own ancestors left villages a long time ago — that’s keeping new migrants employed as chauffeurs, housemaids, condominium security and ATM guards.The economy is geared to satisfy the top 150 million earners, as Rathin Roy, until recently the director at the New Delhi-based National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, has argued. This depresses the wages that would be generated by becoming good at making what the next 300 million want. In the absence of broad-based income growth, consumers boosted spending by borrowing. When they eventually started to deleverage last year, India faced an acute demand funk, even for 7-cent munchies.Since then, Covid-19 hasn’t been the only wake-up call. Rapidly deteriorating U.S.-China relations portend sweeping changes in global supply chains, but even in its own neighborhood, India isn’t competitive in manufacturing. A once-in-a-generation opportunity could slip out of its grasp. At a furniture store in Ho Chi Minh City some years ago, I saw colorful satin-upholstered sofas whose sides were drab black polyester. This, I was told, was because the sides would take dirt from motorbike tires and must be easy to clean: A Vietnamese family would park the two-wheeler, its most precious possession, next to the living-room furniture to keep it safe at night. Societies that value and make things that workers themselves use lift living standards and labor productivity. No wonder Vietnam, now a hub for Samsung Electronics Co., is winning investments from Inventec Corp., Apple Inc.’s main assembly partner for AirPods, as well as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn.India must also make more shoes, clothes and toys. To create a permanent urban workforce that will both produce and consume those wage goods, it should also build millions of new homes.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services. He previously was a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. He has also worked for the Straits Times, ET NOW and Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance
Nasdaq is 'moving faster than any train we've ever seen before': veteran strategist
The Nasdaq is like "a train that is moving faster than any train we've ever seen before,” says one veteran strategist.
- Yahoo Finance
The best gadgets for the beach and pool: Tech Support
Heading to the beach or pool? These are the best headphones, ereaders, and more to bring with you.
- Zacks
Why Apple (AAPL) Could Beat Earnings Estimates Again
Apple (AAPL) has an impressive earnings surprise history and currently possesses the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely beat in its next quarterly report.
- Zacks
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Apple, Microsoft, TMobile US, Goldman Sachs and Cigna
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Apple, Microsoft, TMobile US, Goldman Sachs and Cigna
- Zacks
Apple (AAPL) to Support Thunderbolt on Future ARM-Based Macs
Apple (AAPL) set to support Intel's Thunderbolt USB-C connectivity standard on new Apple silicon computers, despite the lack of Intel processors.
- Bloomberg
TSMC Sales Shine After Virus Drives Demand for Datacenter Chips
(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. posted monthly revenue that suggested June-quarter sales surpassed analysts’ estimates, underscoring how its technological lead is helping the chipmaker weather the pandemic and U.S. curbs on No. 2 customer Huawei Technologies Co.Apple Inc.’s main iPhone chipmaker reported sales of NT$120.88 billion ($4.1 billion) for June on Friday. That likely means TSMC’s revenue grew about 29% to NT$310.7 billion last quarter, based on previously reported figures, beating the NT$308.8 billion analysts expect on average.TSMC, a barometer for the industry thanks to its heft in the global supply chain, had previously lowered its 2020 revenue outlook to reflect potentially the biggest global economic crisis since the Great Depression. But it said at the time it still expects robust demand for the semiconductors in datacenters hosting an unprecedented surge in online activity during the pandemic. Executives forecast revenue growth of about 30% in the June quarter while sticking to a goal of $15 billion to $16 billion for capital spending in 2020, up from last year’s $14.9 billion.What Bloomberg Intelligence SaysSales of Asian contract chipmakers TSMC, SMIC and others may beat consensus in 2H despite the longer-than-expected Covid-19 pandemic, due to rising semiconductor demand for cloud processing and video conferencing amid social-distancing requirements.\- Charles Shum, analystClick here for the research.In the longer term, the chipmaker will still have to contend with uncertainty as Covid-19 spreads across the globe, particularly as signs emerge of a second wave. TSMC however is considered relatively more resistant to a downturn thanks to a commanding position in the production of high-end chips needed for everything from datacenters and gaming to video streaming.It’s also the primary producer of cutting-edge chips for Huawei, but the Trump administration’s ban on the use of American chipmaking gear for the Chinese company threaten a business relationship that accounts for about 14% of TSMC’s revenue.Read more: Huawei Sees Dire Threat to Future From Latest Trump SalvoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
TikTok Teens Try To Trick Trump Campaign, Again
(Bloomberg) -- The TikTok-tivists are at it again.Thousands of users of the popular video app flocked to the Apple App Store in the last few days to flood U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign app with negative reviews. On Wednesday alone 700 negative reviews were left on the Official Trump 2020 app and 26 positive ones, according to tracking firm Sensor Tower.TikTok fans are retaliating for Trump’s threats to ban the app, which is owned by China’s Bytedance Ltd. and is hugely popular in the U.S., especially among teens. The thought of taking away a key social and entertainment hub in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to outrage.“For Gen Z and Millennials, TikTok is our clubhouse and Trump threatened it,” said Yori Blacc, a 19-year-old TikTok user in California who joined in the app protest. “If you’re going to mess with us, we will mess with you.”Blacc said the movement gained steam Wednesday when a popular TikTok user, DeJuan Booker, called on his 750,000 followers to seek revenge. He posted a step-by-step primer on how to degrade the app’s rating, notching 5.6 million views. “Gen Z don’t go down without a fight,” said Booker, who goes by @unusualbeing on TikTok. “Let’s go to war.”The Trump campaign said the effort hasn’t had any impact.“TikTok users don’t affect anything we do. What we do know is that the Chinese use TikTok to spy on its users,” said Tim Murtaugh, director of communications for the Trump Campaign. ByteDance has always denied such accusationsThe efforts to push the app low enough so that Apple will remove it from the app store may be misguided. Apple doesn’t delete apps based on their popularity. The App Store may review those that violate its guidelines or are outdated, but not if their ratings sink. A similar tactic was tried in April to protest Google Classroom by kids frustrated with quarantine home-schooling.But young people are looking for ways to make their voices heard, even if some of them can’t yet vote. Last month, many young people organized through TikTok to sign up to attend Trump’s first post-shutdown campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but then didn’t show up. The Trump campaign denied the online organizing effort contributed to lower-than-expected attendance.Nearly 60% of Gen Zers are opposed to a TikTok ban, according to a survey conducted from Tuesday to Thursday of 2,200 adults by Morning Consult Brand Intelligence. Across all ages, about a third of Americans have never heard of TikTok, while a third have a favorable impression and a third have an unfavorable view of the app, the survey found.Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. TikTok experienced connectivity issues on Thursday, according to Downdector, which measures web traffic, but the company said it had resolved them later the same day.Trump’s re-election smartphone app is a big part of the president’s unrivaled digital operation and was meant to circumvent tech companies like Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. and give the campaign a direct line to supporters. The app has helped the campaign engage Trump’s die-hard supporters, especially in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, by feeding them his latest tweets and promoting virtual events. Supporters can donate to the president’s campaign or earn rewards for recruiting friends like VIP seats to rallies or photos with the president.The Official Trump 2020 app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times on Google’s Android store as of June 15. Apple doesn’t publish information on downloads.Reviews with titles such as “Terrible App” or “Do Not Download!” have been flooding the App Store since late June. Official Trump 2020 now has more than 103,000 one-star reviews for an overall rating of 1.2.But the uptick of activity has also caused the app to rise in rankings. Users have to download the app to review it, vaulting it to second place on the Apple store from No. 486 on Tuesday, according to Sensor Tower.“Do I think that this is going to fundamentally change the election? No,” said Tim Lim, a veteran Democratic digital strategist. “But it goes to show that they are just as susceptible to these mass actions as anyone else. Trump is starting to see what it feels like to have a massive online army committed to defeating him.”Trump earlier this week said his administration is considering banning TikTok as one way to retaliate against China over its handling of the coronavirus. Trump’s comments came after Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told Americans not to download the app unless they want to see their private information fall into “the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.” Bytedance is also facing a U.S. national security review for its acquisition of startup Musical.ly. It has denied allegations that it poses a threat to U.S. national security.Trump didn’t offer specifics about a potential decision and Pompeo seemed to walk back the idea of a ban in a later statement, saying that the U.S. efforts to protect American consumers’ data don’t relate to any one particular company.Many TikTok users say they care less about potential Chinese snooping and more about Trump taking away their digital hangout. In the U.S., TikTok has been downloaded more than 165 million times, according to Sensor Tower.“I don’t believe Trump is trying to take TikTok away because of national security, but more to retaliate against activism on the app and all the videos about him that drag him through the mud,” said Darius Jackson, an 18-year-old TikTok user in Champaign, Illinois, who asked his followers Wednesday to give Trump’s app a one-star rating.“This is the first year I’ll be able to vote and I think activism on TikTok is going to make a big difference,” Jackson said.(Updates with Trump campaign response from sixth paragraph. A previous version of the story corrected the spelling of the Illinois city in the penultimate paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Global PC Sales Climb on Rebounding Supply Chains, Rising Demand
(Bloomberg) -- Global personal computer shipments climbed in the second quarter, when vendors patched supply-chain issues and consumer demand for laptops surged with more people forced to work from home.PC makers shipped 2.8% more devices in the three-month period compared with a year earlier, for a total of 64.8 million units, according to preliminary data released Thursday by researcher Gartner Inc. Rival industry analyst IDC pegged the year-over-year increase at 11%. Both firms said the increase was fueled by particularly strong growth in Europe and the U.S.Major PC makers endured supply chain breakdowns during the first few months of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic ground some manufacturing to a halt in the Asia-Pacific region, which produces key computer components. Vendors had little stock for some products while also facing stronger demand as billions of people around the world fled their offices to minimize the spread of Covid-19.“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio,” Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager at IDC, said in a statement.HP Inc. and China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. each held about 25% of the global market. Gartner put Lenovo barely ahead while IDC had Palo Alto, California-based HP as No. 1 for the quarter. Dell Technologies Inc. and Apple Inc. rounded out the top four on both lists.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Runup in Tech Mega-Caps Sows Doubt Before Key Earnings
(Bloomberg) -- Some of Wall Street’s biggest stocks are coming off their best quarterly performance in years, and with the broader economy still grappling with the pandemic, analysts are starting to express some skepticism about high-profile rallies.The S&P 500 surged 20% in the second quarter, its biggest quarterly gain since 1998. While the superlative nature of the rally was partly a function of timing -- many components hit a bottom right before the end of the first quarter -- the move was fueled by tech and internet stocks, which outperformed the benchmark and have heavy weightings due to their massive market capitalizations.Apple and Amazon.com both gained more than 40% during the quarter, making it the iPhone maker’s best quarter since 2012 and Amazon’s best since 2010.On Wednesday, Deutsche Bank confessed it was “surprised at both the speed and magnitude of the rebound” in Apple shares, adding that the move “has us nervous.” Raymond James echoed this tone on Tuesday, seeing uncertainty surrounding Apple’s forecast given an expected delay in the iPhone 12, a product Nomura Instinet expects “will fall short of a supercycle.” Both Deutsche Bank and Raymond James still recommend buying Apple shares.Amazon remains a consensus favorite on Wall Street -- more than 90% of the firms tracked by Bloomberg recommend buying it -- but the degree to which the share price exceeds analysts’ average price target is near a multiyear high, suggesting that even bulls aren’t expecting much additional upside.Among other mega-cap names, Microsoft rose 29% over the second quarter, its best such showing since 2009. Both Facebook and Google-parent Alphabet notched their biggest quarterly gain since 2013, with Facebook up 36% and Alphabet up 22%, based on its Class A shares. Netflix rose 21% last quarter.All are at or near record levels, and the rallies will soon be tested as each member of the group is scheduled to post quarterly results before the end of the month, with Netflix reporting next week.Apple EstimatesFor Apple, the rally has come despite a more tepid view for its upcoming results. Wall Street expects third-quarter earnings, excluding some items, of $2.03 a share, a consensus that is down 6.8% from where it was three months ago. The consensus for revenue has declined 0.9% over the same period.While analysts debate whether the results will justify the recent gains, many of these names are seen as potential pandemic winners. Microsoft is expected to see stronger demand for its cloud-computing and workplace collaboration products as people continue to work remotely, while the e-commerce wave lifting Amazon and others is seen as outlasting the coronavirus’s impact on brick-and-mortar stores.Apple analysts also see a number of reasons to be optimistic for the long term, including the company’s services business, wearable products, and its stock-buyback program. “Overall, we believe the directionality and reasoning behind AAPL’s stock rise,” Deutsche Bank’s Jeriel Ong wrote. Still, the firm has “ambivalence at these levels.”Firms expressed a similar sentiment about Netflix, which has seen higher engagement during the pandemic. Rosenblatt Securities “struggle[s] to see the upside” from current levels given “uncertainty over how [long] this favorable environment will last.” Stifel continues “to grapple with the risk/reward profile given limited 2H visibility.”Imperial Capital downgraded the stock earlier this week, moving away from an outperform rating that it had held since starting coverage on Netflix about two years ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Following the recent advance, Netflix “will begin a fairly extensive range-bound trend as other long opportunities emerge in the media space,” the firm said.(Removes reference to Microsoft reporting next week in seventh paragraph of story originally published July 8.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance
Stock market news live updates: Stocks mostly lower after Nasdaq sets record high
Stocks abruptly turned negative Thursday as fears over the economic outlook following an increase in coronavirus cases resurged. The Dow and S&P 500 wiped out their week to date gains.
- TechCrunch
Apple expands its free coding courses and materials for educators
Apple today announced its plans for a new, free resource aimed at helping educators of all skill levels gain the ability to teach both Swift and Xcode -- the latest in Apple's educational initiatives focused on encouraging more students to learn app development. On July 13, Apple will begin offering free online training to educators that will serve as an introduction to its Develop in Swift curriculum. This curriculum has also been completely redesigned to meet students learning styles, based on user feedback, says Apple.
