Vital Dawn Podcast for Wednesday April 29

Welcome to the Vital Dome Podcast for Wednesday, April 29th. U.S. equity futures are flat to up small so far this morning. So S&P futures, Dow futures, and Russell futures are all essentially unchanged. NASDAQ futures are climbing about 90 points, which is 33 basis points. In Europe, demand indices are down about 40 to 45 basis points. You're seeing underperformance in Europe in luxury staples, insurance, retail, healthcare, real estate, and utilities. You're seeing outperformance in energy, telecom, tech, and chemicals. And then turning to Asia, generally saw gains. The Hang Seng rose about 1.7%. Gen. Heng comp ticked up 70 basis points. Korea rallied 70 basis points as well. Japan was closed. So the big news this morning is earnings. We are in the peak volume period of the season. So starting Tuesday night, continuing into Thursday night, this will be the peak period in terms of just the overall volume of reports. So a million names out last night in the U.S., a ton of names out this morning in Europe. We're about to get another huge wave in an hour or so from the U.S. And then tonight we're going to hear from the bulk of the MegaCAD tech stocks with Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft all did a report after 4 o'clock today. In terms of U.S. earnings last night, the results were strong. You know Mondelez NXPI Starbucks Seagate Visa are all the highlights among large cap companies Seagate and Visa and Starbucks in particular NXPI also very robust Seagate and NXPI are helping to rejuvenate semiconductors which saw a brief bout of profit on Tuesday A lot of the same themes that we've been hearing from other companies throughout the Q1 season so far in terms of Seagate and NXPI, very robust AI trends, continue huge wave of demand from data center build-outs. nxpi echoed what text instruments said um you know you're seeing they are seeing an increase in demand and improved trends for the non-ai parts of the semiconductor market so autos and industrials and then visa was just kind of the latest indication that the consumer remains very healthy very resilient despite all the macro noise despite all the sentiment surveys showing you know the sentiment surveys being at at or near multi-year lows and in Europe this morning I would say the results also for the most part are decent Adidas is probably the big upside standout Zaka is rallying after very strong results UBS also Mercedes Total Energies and a bunch of others are being received well there were a few disappointments in Europe including Deutsche Bank GSK Halion and Sandoz but for the most part the Q1 season remains strong really the only negative thing you can say is that You know, the bar now for earnings is so much higher than it was a couple of weeks ago when the season started because we have seen so many strong reports But for the most part companies continue to manage through this difficult environment very well They all are acknowledging the risks They all are acknowledging they all tempering their outlooks We'd probably see a lot more guidance increases, if not for what's happening in Iran. So you're seeing a lot of beats and kind of reiteration of guidance, which reflects just the macro uncertainty that's lurking out there. But earnings still on a very favorable trajectory. In terms of macro news, the big focus for today is really just on Iran. So there's a Wall Street Journal article. It's probably the most important macro development since the closed yesterday, just saying how Trump is telling his aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran. You're still at a negotiating impasse. It appears Iran had floated this to ship the sequencing in terms of what to negotiate on, focusing first on Hormuz and resolving the blockade and then addressing nuclear issues The White House is rejecting that for obvious reasons because Hormuz is their main point of leverage on the nuclear topics. So oil continues to rally. It's up again this morning. Markets continue to absorb the oil move very well. There still is the expectation that there will be some type of an agreement reached. It is widely now the consensus view that Trump will not escalate militarily. that's been my perspective and I continue to believe that. But certainly this is tracking on and the status quo is untenable for both sides Iran economy is collapsing and you seeing fallout in the US as well even though it certainly not showing up in Q1 earnings at least so far So that is everything for this morning Just a ton of earnings I have details on everything in the piece, so take a look. You can find that on the website at vitalknowledge.net. You can sign up for free trial. Also reach out to see if we have a bulk agreement in place with your employer. For the calendar today, like I said, the focus will really be on earnings before the open. AbbVie, ADT, Cognizant, GE Healthcare, Yum Brands, Stanley, and a bunch of others. After the close, like I said, Amazon, Chipotle, Ford, Google, Clack, Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm are the large gap highlights. The Fed is at two o'clock. It should be a non-event. I think the overall message will be pretty consistent as far as policy is concerned. the Fed is likely on hold for the balance of the year. Perhaps one of the final two meetings of the year, there could be a rate cut. There is some talk that Powell could remove from the table the potential for rate cuts at any point this year, just given what's happening with oil, although I think he'll hesitate to do that at this point in time. And then it'll also be interesting to see if he makes a decision on if he will step down as governor once he cedes the chairman position to Warsh. because that is still kind of outstanding. That is everything for today, Wednesday, April 29th. Thank you everyone for listening.