Thursday, October 17th, 2024

Markets cooled off today, quickly dropping shortly after the opening bell this morning. In fact, the small-cap Russell 2000, which outshone the major indexes yesterday, fell into negative territory early and stayed there virtually all session. Among the four major indexes, it’s hard to get flatter than this: the Dow was up +162 points, +0.38% (to a fresh all-time closing high of 43,240), but the Russell was -0.31%. The S&P 500 came in -0.012% while the Nasdaq was up +0.035%.

Econ Reports from This Morning: Production/Utilization, Homebuilder Survey and More

Minutes before this morning’s opening bell, Industrial Production for September swung to a deeper negative than expected: -0.3%, versus -0.2% consensus and a +0.3% notched for the previous month. This is the third straight negative print on industrial production — one fewer than the four-month slide from January through April of this year. 

Capacity Utilization, released every month in tandem with Industrial Production numbers, fell to 77.5% — its lowest monthly level since January of this year, and notably off from the 77.8% reported the previous month, which was what had been expected again. We had been as high as 78.2% as recently as June, but now looks to be sinking back toward those January lows.

Business Inventories for August were in-line with expectations: +0.3%, coming off a +0.3% for July. It’s nice to see steady positive numbers almost anywhere we can find them, although inventory growth is pretty much the least-desirable type of growth there is.

The Homebuilder Confidence Index for October continues to show improvement, to 43 this month from 41 last month, and above expectations for 42. 

Netflix Storms Ahead of Estimates in Q3

Streaming giant and former FANG component Netflix NFLX reported stellar numbers in its Q3 report out this afternoon. Earnings of $5.40 per share surged past the $5.09 in the Zacks consensus, demonstrating +45% growth year over year. Revenues in the quarter of $9.825 billion surpassed the $9.77 billion analysts had been expecting, up +15% from a year ago.

Operating Margins also outperformed in the quarter: +30% versus +22%, while Global Streaming Paid Net Adds grew by +5.07% to 282.7 million total. This is still a cool-down from 8.8 million a year ago, but one in which Netflix’s global outreach continues to expand. 

Finally, next-quarter revenue guidance is up to a range of $43-44 billion. Shares are up +3.4% at this hour, adding to the company’s +46% year to date. 

Check out the updated Zacks Earnings Calendar here. https://www.zacks.com/earnings/earnings-calendar