Trading Observations

• S&P Futures flat, Nasdaq's down slightly as QCOM, SWKS and ARM in particular disappointed

• Russell Futures up slightly gaining on yday's move

• It's notable the IWM gained back its 50-day after a strong rally back for stocks

• 6100 remains resistance for the S&P, with tactical support at Monday's low of 5936

• Jobless Claims stay low as hiring sentiment improves

• Heavy earnings day, SWKS the biggest loser down 30% lost ground in the iPhone… potentially to AVGO

• Retail buy imbalances showed a record imbalance of $5.03 billion on Jan. 17. That was the biggest since 2019, when they started tracking that and includes the COVID period. https://tinyurl.com/4ddr54sm [tinyurl.com]

   

Futures

DOW +78

S&P +15

Nasdaq +10

10-Year Yield

Oil

BITCOIN

Financials / Retail / Healthcare

MSTR – Flat on earnings. Anyone have selling a condor as the big winner on this? Probably not. They announce how many bitcoin they have roughly weekly, so its probably right the market ignore the noise.

FNMA, FMCC – Both up 14% on talk from the HUD Secretary saying privatization is a priority. These stocks are worth whatever the government makes them worth, so headlines like this point to there potentially being some equity value. That said in traditional form they are massively leveraged without enough equity to cover any down moves.

UAA – Under Armor up 8% on solid work towards a turnaround. They have an incredible lineup of athletes to use, but don’t expect the market to love this too much as revenue was down 10% y/y.

OWL – A hot private investment name missed on Private Equity returns and missed on deployment of capital.

ARES, VOYA – Downgraded.

Twitter/X Loan by Elon Musk – Banks were able to sell $5.5B of loans to investors related to this transaction after $1B in sales last month. The loans traded at $0.97 on the dollar. Remember he borrowed $13B+ of the $44B needed to take Twitter private.

COST – Jan comps +9.8% y/y, up from +8.4% in December. This juggernaut continues to win so it can hold its very high multiple.

HOG – Announced a major inventory destocking in 2025 to help dealer margins. The company continues to cash flow $4000-$500MM per year and return it to shareholders, which is attractive to some.

PTON: +8% boosted adj EBITDA outlook

GOOS – Revs missed

Technology

AI/Qualcomm commentary: "As we enter the era of AI inference, we expect that while training will continue in the cloud, inference will run increasingly on-device, making AI more accessible, customizable, and efficient"

ARM: -6% inline guide not enough given multiple (cautious revenue forecast, adding to concern that spending on AI computing is slowing); solid FQ3/Dec upside on the KPIs (sales, EPS, Oper margins all beat). Both license and royalty sales were ahead of expectations. Dec-Q royalty rev growth of +23% y-y driven by contd adoption and initial shipments on compute subsystems + custom silicon going into the datacenter

ENTG: -2.3% Q4 beat; guides below for Q1 (both top/bottom) - "As we enter 2025, visibility outside of advanced logic and AI-driven applications remains limited and we have yet to see evidence of a significant broad-based semiconductor market rebound"

LYFT - is partnering with OpenAI rival Anthropic to create new products for both riders and drivers, the rideshare company said in a statement Thursday.

NVDA: surged 5%+ on decent volume; hyperscaler capex figuers + SMCI press release were drivers. "The Supermicro Building Block portfolio provides the core infrastructure elements necessary to scale Blackwell solutions with exceptional time to deployment"

NVDA – MS out Reiterating Top Pick as the DeepSeek selloff is a buying opportunity.

QCOM: -5% Q1 but guide/commentary not enough w/ lingering smartphone concerns. Commentary regarding handset units for the year forecast a flat to low-single digit growth “while seasonality from Apple has impacted the near-term March guidance which implies a sequential decline in handsets of 10%

SWKS: -30% crushed during call as said it would suffer a big setback in the next iPhone, with a 20-25% drop in its content position vs the present device. This will start negatively impacting the top line in FQ4/Sept and throughout F26 .... inlinish qrtr/guide mean little. $2B buyback / CEO change

SONO: announced a 12% reduction in headcount.

TikTok: China will only consider a sale of TikTok’s US business as part of a broader trade/economic/technology deal w/the White House and is prepared to let the business die if an overarching accord can’t be reached (Washington Post)

Industrials 

EVs/Ford: F (-4%) hit has sees sharp drop in profit as Trump tariff/EV threats loom; FY25 adj Ebit guidance BELOW w/ increased y/y losses on the Model e business and lower contribution from Ford Pro as the main drivers; guidance assumes no impact from tariffs and headwinds from lower pricing and FX rates

Denmark's Maersk to initiate $2 bln share buyback

LKQ: *LKQ TO GIVE ACTIVIST ANCORA BOARD SEATS

MCK - Despite strong demand for branded and specialty drugs, McKesson posted revenues of $95.29 billion, slightly below the $96.08 billion forecast. US pharmaceutical sales surged 19% year-over-year to $87.11 billion, though they didn’t meet the $88.92 billion analysts predicted.