The Weekend Rip: November 19, 2023
Stocks continued to rally this week, with the S&P 500 closing green in 13 of the last 15 sessions.
Let’s recap and prep you for the week ahead.
What Happened?
📊 Softer-than-expected consumer and producer price readings helped fuel the bulls’ strength. This week’s push helped bring the major U.S. indexes back into positive territory, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 up over 45%. Nvidia’s earnings report on Tuesday after the bell is expected to drive the market’s next big move.
🤩 This week’s Stocks Top 25 report showed outperformance relative to the indexes.
🛒 Retailers reported mixed results, sending some stocks up and others down. For example, Target saw double-digit gains this week despite sales declining, while Walmart fell after its sales grew mid-single-digits YoY. Regardless of who reported, they all sustained a cautious undertone about the state of the U.S. consumer.
⚔️ Chinese stocks caught a bid this week on better-than-expected economic news and upbeat earnings results from JD.com. However, the news that Alibabais scrapping its cloud unit spinoff plans showed that recent geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China have material real-world implications.
😠Popular pandemic-era stocks like Sea Ltd. and Workhorse continue to burn investors, with many completing “round trips” recently.
📰 Several other topics made headlines, including Palo Alto Networks, auto stocks, BJ’s Wholesale, and cocoa and orange juice futures.
🔥 Certain symbols were on the Stocks trending tab for most of the week, including $UUUU, $FSR, $AIRE, $TSLA, and $AVAX.X.
Here are the closing prices:
| S&P 500 | 4,514 | +2.24% |
| Nasdaq | 14,125 | +2.37% |
| Russell 2000 | 1,798 | +5.42% |
| Dow Jones | 34,947 | +1.94% |
Bullets From The Weekend
🚀 SpaceX experiences a bittersweet Starship launch. The company flew its most powerful rocket ever built for the second time this weekend. And although the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage had to be blown up in mid-air, it was still viewed as a massive success for the company as it reached new heights. Reports say the automated flight termination system (FTS) onboard the Super Heavy booster was unexpectedly triggered, leading to it being blown up prematurely. It’s still unclear why this occurred. TechCrunch has more.
🔇 The majority of ESPN’s accounts have gone dark on X. Since Disney joined a slew of other companies pulling their advertising from the platform, most of ESPN’s accounts have not posted since Friday. Onlookers have noted that the main ESPN account, with almost 50 million followers, had no recent activity. Disney’s other accounts on the platform were similarly silent, though the company has not provided any official statement or acknowledgment of this situation. More from The Verge.
🤔 Following backlash, the OpenAI board is discussing Sam Altman’s return as CEO. Late Friday, news broke that Altman was suddenly fired from OpenAI. However, after receiving pushback from employees, investors, and other stakeholders about the decision, the OpenAI board is backtracking its decision. With that said, reports are that Altman is “ambivalent” about coming back and would want significant governance changes. Speculation is that these talks occurring just a day after the board’s decision to let him go shows the state of “free-fall” the company is now in without him. Everyone in tech is watching this developing situation. The Verge has more.
Need a concise summary of what’s going on this week? Look no further. Here’s an overview of important earnings and economic data for the trading week ahead.
Economic Calendar
It’s a light list of economic data, with investors focused primarily on earnings during a shortened holiday week. In addition to the above, check out this week’s complete list of economic releases.
Earnings This Week
Earnings season is slowing down, with 87 companies reporting this week. Some tickers you may recognize are $NVDA, $ZM, $ADI, $LOW, $DE, $BBY, and more.
Above is a quick summary. Check out the full Stocks earnings calendar for the other names reporting this week.