Tag Archives: commodity

Stock Futures Tick Lower After S&P 500’s Record Close

U.S. stock futures ticked down Tuesday, suggesting that the major indexes may pause after closing at record highs.

Futures tied to the S&P 500 edged 0.2% lower, after the benchmark gauge posted its eighth all-time closing high of 2021 on Monday. Futures for the technology-focused Nasdaq-100 index also slipped almost 0.2% and contracts for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%.

Investors said markets are taking a breather following a broad advance in stocks and commodities. The recent rally has been fueled by expectations of a new dose of stimulus spending in the U.S., which could add impetus to the economic revival. That has helped pare expectations for turbulence in U.S. stocks, sending the Cboe Volatility Index down this week to less than 22, after the gauge surged to over 37 at the end of January.

“Very small downsized moves are a symptom of low volatility,” said Trevor Greetham, head of multiasset at U.K. investment firm Royal London Asset management. “Low and falling volatility is a bull market phenomenon. You do get quiet days.”

Expectations that the economy will revive this year have prompted money managers to bet stocks will continue to power higher, driven by sectors such as energy, banks and consumer companies that are sensitive to growth.

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Bitcoin blows past $45,000 and reaches as high as $48,000, driven by Tesla’s investment

The price of bitcoin reached as high as $48,000 on Tuesday, building on gains following news that electric-car maker Tesla has invested $1.5 billion in the cryptocurrency and may accept it as future payment for products.

After reaching a record of near $44,000 on Monday, bitcoin prices
BTCUSD,
+2.48%
hit $45,000, $46,000 and $47,000 later that evening, according to CoinDesk. Prices reached a high of $48,226 early Tuesday and have since pulled back to $46,450, according to CoinDesk.

Sparking the fresh surge for bitcoin was a Tesla
TSLA,
+1.31%
regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. It revealed Tesla acquired $1.5 billion in bitcoins in January and plans to accept it “as a form of payment for our products in the near future, subject to applicable laws and initially on a limited basis, which we may or may not liquidate upon receipt.” 

Read: Musk’s Tesla says it invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin, sending the cryptocurrency to record levels near $44,000

That’s as Musk has been recently voicing support for cryptocurrencies on his Twitter account.

For the bitcoin faithful, it was a monumental move by a big company to invest in the digital currency and allow payments. But on the other side, some analysts questioned Tesla’s move, given the volatility of the cryptocurrency, as well as share prices of the electric car maker.

Even if bitcoin’s price multiplied by five over the past year, it could still come crashing down, Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, told clients in a note. “The high volatility in Bitcoin’s value will therefore inevitably inject a certain volatility in Tesla’s revenue, and decrease the predictability of the company’s performance.”

Bitcoin’s year-to-date gain is up more than 60% in 2021. That’s against a 4% rise for the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.74%
and an 8.5% gain for the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+0.95%,
while gold
GC00,
+0.47%
is down around 3% and crude oil prices
CL.1,
+0.17%
are up 20%.

Read: Should I buy dogecoin? Why prices of the cryptocurrency are surging — but risky

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GameStop’s meteoric gains have almost entirely disappeared — here’s advice for those who didn’t get out in time

The author of the Cracked Market blog, Jani Ziedins, last week warned the traders piling into the videogames retailer GameStop not to get greedy — or more specifically, not to be a pig.

Well.

As the chart shows, that short squeeze worked until it didn’t. Momentum fizzled after Robinhood and other brokerages limited access to trading in GameStop
GME,
-42.11%
and other securities that were surging in popularity. As to why, there will be Congressional hearings to find out the culprit — hedge funds or good-old-fashioned margin requirements — but the end result is the same.

GameStop may still have its moments. “As for what comes next, GME will be insanely volatile for weeks and even months. That means 50% and 100% moves in both directions. But at this point, a 50% bounce only gets us back to $75. Maybe we get back to $100 or even $125, but waiting for anything higher is just wishful thinking,” Ziedins says.

Here’s Ziedins’ advice now. “For those that still have money left in the market, there is no reason to ride this all the way into the dirt. Cash in what you have left, learn from this lesson, and come back to the market better prepared next time,” says the Cracked Market blogger.

Cue, Frank Sinatra.

And those traders are inexperienced. Cardify, a consumer-data firm, did a survey of 1,600 self-directed investors in GameStop and cinema chain AMC Entertainment
AMC,
-20.96%
and found that most were inexperienced investors — 44% having less than 12 months of experience, and another quarter with one to two years’ experience. Nearly half made their biggest-ever do-it-yourself trading investment in the last four weeks, according to the survey that ended on Monday.

Why? Of these overwhelmingly young and male investors, 45% said for quick financial profits. Nearly 20% said it was part of a long-term investing strategy, and 16% said to spite big hedge funds and institutional investors, according to Cardify.

The buzz

The U.S. added 49,000 nonfarm payrolls jobs in January while the unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, according to the Labor Department.

The U.S. Senate in the early hours of the morning approved a budget resolution that will allow for a fast tracking of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan proposed by the Biden administration to be approved without Republican support. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tiebreaking vote. Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
+0.93%
meanwhile submitted its coronavirus vaccine for Food and Drug Administration approval.

Pinterest
PINS,
+0.91%
shares jumped 11% in premarket trade, as the art-sharing social-media service reported forecast-beating earnings on a 76% jump in revenue during the fourth quarter. Another social-media service, Snap
SNAP,
-1.60%,
also beat expectations. Besides using social media, people stuck at home were playing videogames, as Activision Blizzard
ATVI,
-0.10%
gained 8% after it reported stronger earnings and bookings than expected, increased its dividend by 15%, and authorized a $4 billion share buyback plan.

Ford Motor Co.
F,
+1.52%
reported a surprise profit and topped expectations.

Exercise-bike maker Peloton Interactive
PTON,
+7.04%
slumped 7% as it did beat on earnings but flagged a rise in shipping and other costs. T-Mobile US
TMUS,
+0.95%,
the mobile service operator, also beat earnings expectations but guided to a softer 2021 than expected.

Luckin Coffee, the U.S.-listed Chinese coffee retailer, filed for bankruptcy protection, less than a year after an accounting scandal.

The market

After the S&P 500
SPX,
+1.09%
ended Thursday at a record for the sixth time in 2021, U.S. stock futures
ES00,
+0.37%

NQ00,
+0.20%
pointed to another day of gains.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury
TMUBMUSD10Y,
1.158%
moved up to 1.16%, after ending Thursday at its highest in 11 months.

The chart

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Today’s technology giants are following a similar trajectory to the radio makers of the 1920s, as well as the dot-com era around the turn of the century. “So the point is that you can be a firm believer in tech’s ability to transform our lives but still think valuations might be in a bubble,” said Jim Reid, strategist at Deutsche Bank.

Random reads

This local government meeting over Zoom
ZM,
+2.50%
turned into a chaotic, internet sensation.

Chocolate sales were 40% to 50% higher in areas with an increased number of COVID-19 cases, according to confectioner Hershey
HSY,
+0.44%.

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Asian markets retreat as caution sets in

TOKYO — Asian shares mostly fell Thursday as caution set in over company earnings reports, recent choppy trading in technology stocks and prospects for more economic stimulus for a world battling a pandemic.

Japan’s Nikkei 225
NIK,
-1.03%
slipped 0.5% in early trading, while South Korea’s Kospi
180721,
-1.90%
dropped 1.6%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO,
-0.87%
slipped 0.6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
HSI,
-1.35%
lost 1.2%, while the Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP,
-1.38%
was down 1%. Stocks rose in Indonesia
JAKIDX,
+0.63%
and Malaysia
FBMKLCI,
-0.25%
but fell in Singapore
STI,
-1.29%
and Taiwan
Y9999,
-0.43%.

Also on market players’ minds is the global vaccine rollout, which is becoming more organized in the U.S., but yet to play out in much of Asia, except for China, where the pandemic started.

“As the rally waned for the U.S. market, Asia markets can be seen left to their own devices into the Thursday session, and it appears that investors may be locking in some of the recent gains,” said Jingyi Pan, a senior market strategist for IG in Singapore.

Wall Street ended with modest gains, with the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.10%
inched up 3.86 points, or 0.1%, to 3,830.17, after swinging between a gain of 0.6% and a loss of 0.3%. The tiny gain extended the benchmark index’s winning streak to a third day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.12%
gained 36.12 points, or 0.1%, to 30,723.60. The tech-heavy Nasdaq
COMP,
-0.02%
slipped 2.23 points, or less than 0.1%, to 13,610.54. The index had briefly been above its all-time high set last week.

Energy, communications and financial stocks helped lift the market. Those gains were primarily kept in check by declines in companies that rely on consumer spending and technology stocks.

GameStop and other recently high-flying stocks notched modest gains Wednesday. GameStop
GME,
+2.68%
rose 2.7% and AMC
AMC,
+14.71%
climbed 14.7%. The stocks have been caught up in a speculative frenzy by traders in online forums who seek to inflict damage on Wall Street hedge funds that have bet the stocks would fall. GameStop plunged 60% on Tuesday, and AMC Entertainment lost 41.2%.

“There’s a tug of war that’s been brewing for a week or so now, that markets are ripe for a correction and whether the events of last week are a precipitating event,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group.

Stocks have been mostly rallying this week, an encouraging start to February after a late fade in January as volatility spiked amid worries about the timing and scope of another round of stimulus spending by the Biden administration, unease over the effectiveness of the government’s coronavirus vaccine distribution and turbulent swings in GameStop and other stocks hyped on social media.

That volatility has subsided this week, with Wall Street focusing mainly on corporate earnings reports while it keeps an eye on Washington for signs of progress on a new aid package.

Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on support for President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package, but investors are betting that the administration will opt for a reconciliation process to get the legislation through Congress.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude
CLH21,
+0.63%
gained 15 cents to %55.84 a barrel. Brent crude
BRNJ21,
+0.51%,
the international standard, added 6 cents to $58.52 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar
USDJPY,
+0.13%
inched down to 105.02 Japanese yen from 105.06 yen.

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Stock Futures Climb as Online Traders Send Silver Soaring

U.S. stock futures climbed Monday, suggesting that the major benchmarks will recover some ground following their worst week since October.

S&P 500 futures rose 0.7% and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures strengthened 0.6%. Contracts linked to the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index gained 0.7%. Changes in futures don’t necessarily predict moves after the markets open.

Silver futures rose over 11% from Friday’s close, fueled by a wave of fresh enthusiasm from online traders. Silver has rallied in recent trading sessions after users on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum posted about executing a “short squeeze” similar to ones credited with fueling recent gains in other stocks popular on the internet.

Elsewhere in commodities, international benchmark Brent crude rose 1.1% to $55.63 a barrel. Gold also gained 0.8% to $1,866.00 a troy ounce.

Overseas, the Stoxx Europe 600 climbed 0.9% shortly after the market opened. Industrials and energy sectors led gains while the real-estate sector lost ground. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 gained 0.4%.

The Swiss franc was mostly flat against the U.S. dollar, with one franc buying $1.12. The euro fell 0.1% against the dollar, with 1 euro buying $1.21. The British pound was up 0.1% against the U.S. dollar, with 1 pound buying $1.37.

German 10-year bund yields declined to minus 0.518% from minus 0.515% and the 10-year gilts yield was down to 0.323% from 0.329%. 10-year U.S. Treasury yields rose to 1.082% from 1.064%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Indexes in Asia mostly climbed. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 2.2%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index advanced 1.6%, and China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite climbed 0.6%.

GameStop and other stocks and assets have been volatile as online investors make big bets on Reddit forums.



Photo:

Andre M. Chang/Zuma Press

—An artificial-intelligence tool was used in creating this article.

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Stock Futures Point to More Losses; GameStop in Focus

U.S. stock futures dropped, putting Wall Street on course to extend losses amid investor concerns about a slowing economic rebound and froth in markets, exemplified by the wild trading in retailer

GameStop.

Futures tied to the S&P 500 fell 0.2% after the benchmark stocks gauge posted its biggest two-day decline since October. Contracts for the Nasdaq-100 declined 0.8%, after earnings from several technology giants including

Apple

underwhelmed investors late Wednesday. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has fallen for five-consecutive days in its longest losing streak since February, were roughly flat.

The stumble in stocks follows a strong start to the year that some investors say had pushed share prices beyond levels justified by corporate fundamentals. The selloff has taken place amid wild swings in individual stocks including GameStop and

AMC Entertainment,

fueled by a battle between day traders and hedge-fund professionals.

“There is some over-excitement in the market,” said

Olaf van den Heuvel,

chief investment officer for

Aegon

Asset Management in the Netherlands, pointing to the surge in GameStop shares as one example. “It was bubble territory.”

Individual stocks remained volatile ahead of the bell in New York. GameStop shares jumped 28%, having rocketed 135% Wednesday. AMC clawed back earlier losses to climb 6.1%, extending Wednesday’s gains of more than 300%.

The stumble in stocks has taken place amid wild swings in individual shares, including GameStop and AMC Entertainment.



Photo:

Courtney Crow/Associated Press

The slow vaccine rollout and Covid-19 restrictions in major economies have prompted investors to take some money off the table, Mr. van den Heuvel added. He said Aegon would likely view the selloff as a chance to buy risky assets when markets settle down.

Technology stocks dropped ahead of the bell in New York. Shares of Apple fell 2.9% after the iPhone maker reported its most profitable three months on record but didn’t provide specific revenue guidance for the current quarter.

Tesla dropped 6.1% after the electric-vehicle maker—whose shares have soared in recent months—posted its first full-year profit but missed Wall Street’s expectations.

Facebook,

which posted record net income but warned that uncertainty from regulatory probes and ad-targeting limits could create headwinds, fell 0.8% in premarket trading.

In one sign of rising risk aversion, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note dropped below 1% for the first time since Jan. 6, before climbing back to 1.008%, according to

Tradeweb.

Bond yields fall as prices rise. Falling yields are often an indicator that investors see the economic outlook weakening.

The dollar strengthened against various currencies including the Australian dollar and the Korean won. The WSJ Dollar Index, which measures the greenback against a basket of other currencies, rose 0.2%.

Comcast,

American Airlines

and

Mastercard

are scheduled to publish results before markets open. Investors will also parse data on jobless claims—due to be published at 8:30 a.m. ET and expected to show that the number of workers seeking benefits declined last week—for fresh clues about how the economy is weathering the pandemic.

The Federal Reserve maintained its easy money policies Wednesday, saying that business activity has softened with the resurgence of Covid-19 cases.

“Any removal of fiscal stimulus any time soon could lead to a falter in the recovery,” said

Mary Nicola,

a portfolio manager for PineBridge Investments.

The selloff in U.S. stocks extended overseas. The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.7%, led lower by shares of oil-and-gas and financial companies.

Shares in several heavily-shorted European stocks that shot up Wednesday, when the short squeeze spread beyond the U.S., came under pressure. Commercial real-estate firm

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield

lost 2.4% and German drugmaker

Evotec

fell 4%.

“It is nerve-racking,” said

Remi Olu-Pitan,

a fund manager at Schroders, referring to the big moves in stock prices fueled by day traders swapping tips online. She said the volatility likely induced some professional investors, including those caught with loss-making short positions, to take money off the table, weighing on broader markets.

“You will see more violent pullbacks,” Ms. Olu-Pitan said. “There are parts of the market that are in a bubble.”

Among other individual movers,

Prudential

dropped 7.5% after the insurer said it was weighing an equity offering and would separate off its Jackson National arm in the U.S. Diageo gained 4.8%, as analysts cheered strong first-half sales in North America by the alcohol producer.

Markets broadly retreated in Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 2.6%, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.9% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 1.5%. Container-shipping giant Cosco Shipping led losses in mainland China, sliding 10%.

In a sign of jitters in Chinese markets, money-market rates continued to rise. The one-week Shanghai interbank offered rate rose 0.012 percentage point to 2.981%, its highest since 2015, according to FactSet.

Short-term borrowing costs have risen in recent days as the People’s Bank of China unexpectedly drained funds from the financial system. Earlier this week, a major business newspaper also published remarks by

Ma Jun,

an adviser to the central bank, who warned of asset bubbles emerging due to loose monetary policy.

Tai Hui,

chief Asia market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said new pockets of coronavirus outbreaks in China had also dented investor sentiment.

Write to Joe Wallace at Joe.Wallace@wsj.com and Chong Koh Ping at chong.kohping@wsj.com

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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GameStop, Microsoft, AMC: What to Watch When the Stock Market Opens Today

Here’s what we’re watching ahead of Wednesday’s opening bell.

U.S. stock futures slipped, as investors awaited a bumper day of major earnings reports and a meeting of the Federal Reserve.

S&P 500 futures were down 1.1%, while futures tied to the technology-heavy Nasdaq-100 edged down 0.7%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 1.1%.

What’s Coming Up

Earnings updates expected:

Tesla,

TSLA -0.71%

Apple

AAPL -0.22%

and

Facebook

FB -2.39%

are due after the close. The electric-car maker is expected to record its first full-year profit.

The Federal Reserve releases a policy statement at 2 p.m. and Chairman Jerome Powell holds a press conference at 2:30 p.m.

Market Movers to Watch

And then there’s GameStop. Its stock popped again ahead of the bell, soaring 73% in wildly volatile trading. CNBC reported that Melvin Capital, a hedge fund that has posted big losses so far this year in part because of a wager against the videogame retailer’s stock, had closed out its short position on Tuesday afternoon. The report caused a stir on the online platform Reddit—popular among day traders waging a battle against hedge-fund short-sellers—where some members wrote that it was an attempt to pull

GameStop

GME 109.79%

‘s share price back down. And

Elon Musk

weighed in on the stock again last night with a tweet, “Gamestonk!!“

The show must go on: Another heavily shorted stock, movie-theater operator

AMC Entertainment Holdings,

AMC 133.87%

saw its shares vault more than 350% higher premarket.

—Headphone maker

Koss

KOSS 72.20%

has also joined the party, and its shares jumped 109% premarket.

Bed Bath & Beyond

BBBY 28.21%

resumed its upward trajectory, up 20% ahead of the bell. Online traders point to an early 2020 change in management and the fact that the company is buying back shares as signs that the share price will continue to increase.

Microsoft

MSFT 1.44%

shares are up 2.1% premarket. The software giant’s profit and sales jumped, propelled by pandemic-fueled demand for videogaming and accelerated adoption of its cloud-computing services.

Boeing

BA -4.46%

shares fell 3.3% premarket after the plane maker reported its biggest-ever annual loss and took a huge financial hit on its new 777X jetliner, reflecting the pandemic’s worsening toll.

Abbott Laboratories

ABT 1.12%

shares added 1.5% premarket after it logged hearty profit growth in the latest quarter as a surge in demand for its Covid-19 diagnostics services contributed to higher revenue.

Starbucks

SBUX -5.30%

slipped 3% premarket after the coffee chain reported that sales fell during the holiday quarter but showed signs of recovery, particularly in China. Its operating chief

Roz Brewer

is leaving to become CEO of

Walgreens

WBA 6.21%

Boots Alliance, where she’ll be the only Black woman leading a Fortune 500 company. Walgreens shares climbed 5%.

A Walgreens store in Tomball, Texas, Jan. 16, 2021.



Photo:

Jeff Lautenberger for The Wall Street Journal

AT&T

T -1.11%

shares slipped 1.3% premarket after it reported a fourth-quarter loss as it booked a $15.5 billion charge on its pay-TV business.

—Chip maker

Texas Instruments

TXN -2.81%

‘s shares slipped 1.7% premarket even though quarterly results and outlook both topped Wall Street estimates after Tuesday’s close.

Market Fact

Retail order flows have reached 20% of the U.S. stock market’s total, according to

UBS

research, twice what they were in 2010.

Chart of the Day

GameStop shares have become a favorite of online traders who are seeking to make money from buying options.

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Renewed Demand for Treasurys Quells Fears of Rising Rates—for Now

Goldman CEO David Solomon Takes $10 Million Pay Cut for 1MDB Scandal

Biden’s Candidate for SEC Chairman Is Expected to Be Tough

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8



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Apple, Tesla and Facebook ready to report record sales in busiest week of earnings

U.S. companies have barely managed to eke out positive earnings growth so far in this quarterly results season, but the big test arrives in the week ahead.

Nearly a quarter of the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.30%
is set to report results, with those companies representing 39% of the index by market value, according to calculations based on FactSet data. Given that the S&P 500 is weighted by market capitalization, this roster of companies will have an outsize impact on the profit trajectory for the index.

Earnings are expected to decline for the fourth consecutive quarter once all results are in for the latest period, but those companies that have reported thus far have been beating expectations in aggregate.

The FactSet consensus now models a 5% earnings decline for the index, compared with the 6.3% drop projected a week ago. If profit growth for the S&P 500 ultimately ends up positive, it would mark an end to the current earnings recession, which takes place when corporate profits drop for two or more consecutive quarters.

Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+1.61%
and Facebook Inc.
FB,
+0.60%
are among the highlights of next week’s slate, along with Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+0.20%,
which will deliver results for the first time since it became a member of the S&P 500. All three high-profile companies are scheduled to report Wednesday afternoon and expected to have produced record revenue in the holiday quarter.

The holiday quarter is always crucial for Apple, which releases new iPhones in the fall. With a slightly later launch than usual this year due to the pandemic pushing sales into the period, Apple is widely expected to post its largest quarterly revenue total ever and its first ever total above $100 billion. The technology giant likely also continued to see benefits from remote-work and remote-schooling trends, which have driven strong iPad and Mac sales throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

Full preview: Get ready for Apple’s first $100 billion quarter in history

Facebook is also expected to post what should easily be a record quarter given strong digital advertising trends during the holiday period. Still, the company will face questions about user engagement and a decision to ban Donald Trump from the platform indefinitely over his role in inciting the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol. Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik points to “continued usage fatigue” across social media as well as a “conversation skewed towards unmonetizable political events.”

Full preview: Facebook earnings still flourishing amid pandemic, economic slowdown and antitrust scrutiny

Tesla already disclosed delivery numbers for the full year that came in ahead of analyst expectations, and all eyes will be on the company’s outlook for 2021. RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Spak anticipates a delivery forecast of 825,000 to 875,000 million units for the full year, even though Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tesla’s last earnings call that an analyst was “not far off” for expecting 840,000 to a million deliveries during 2021.

Full preview: Can Tesla’s sales growth match stock’s rise?

Here’s what else to watch for in the week ahead, which brings reports from 117 members of the S&P 500 and 13 Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.57%
components.

Up in the air

Boeing Co.’s
BA,
-0.76%
journey remains turbulent even as the company’s 737-MAX jets were recertified after being grounded for almost two years. Though the company began deliveries of these aircraft, “the pace of delivering all 450 parked 737-MAX will be dictated by airline customers ability to absorb aircraft as well as air traffic demand,” according to Benchmark Company analyst Josh Sullivan.

Boeing’s Wednesday morning report will offer perspective on the company’s recovery expectations amid the pandemic, though Sullivan sees volatility ahead stemming from a recent equity offering and the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on airlines.

The fourth-quarter reports from U.S. airlines have been bleak so far, and American Airlines Group Inc.
AAL,
-0.06%
and Southwest Airlines Co.
LUV,
-0.80%
offer more on Thursday morning.

Can you hear me now?

Verizon Communications Inc.
VZ,
+0.35%
leads off a busy week of telecommunications earnings Tuesday morning, followed by AT&T Inc.
T,
+0.35%
Wednesday morning and Comcast Corp.
CMCSA,
-0.92%
Thursday morning.

For the wireless carriers, a key issue will be the impact of iPhone 12 promotions on recent results. Investors will also be looking for information about a recent wireless auction offering spectrum that will be crucial for 5G network deployments. Though the bids haven’t been made public yet, the auction drove record spending and AT&T and Verizon are both expected to have paid up handsomely to assert their standing. The question for investors is what impact these bids will have on the companies’ financial positioning.

Full preview: AT&T earnings to kick off a defining year for telecom giant

AT&T and Comcast have more media exposure than Verizon, and those two companies have been trying to contend with the new realities brought on by the pandemic. Both companies have made moves to emphasize streaming more with their film slates given theater closures, and the financial implications of these moves will be worth watching.

Paying up

The evolving situation with the pandemic is reflected perhaps no more clearly than in the results of Visa Inc.
V,
-1.52%,
Mastercard Inc.
MA,
-1.63%,
and American Express Co.
AXP,
-1.01%,
which have a pulse on the global consumer spending landscape. The companies should provide insight on a travel recovery toward the end of the year, as well as the impact of recent lockdowns.

Susquehanna analyst James Friedman wrote recently that his Mastercard revenue projection of $3.97 billion is slightly below the consensus view, though he also asked: “does anyone really care about Q4 2020?” Friedman is upbeat about mobile-payments and online-shopping dynamics that suggest “positive trends ahead” for Mastercard, which reports Thursday morning. Visa follows that afternoon, while American Express kicks of the week with its Tuesday morning report.

The chip saga continues

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
AMD,
+1.38%
is poised to keep benefiting from Intel Corp.’s
INTC,
-9.29%
stumbles, which analysts expect to last for some time even as Intel prepares for a new, technology-oriented chief executive to take the helm.

“We have low confidence that Intel will be able to close that transistor gap quickly, and therefore expect it to continue to lose share for the foreseeable future,” Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis wrote after Intel’s latest earnings report. AMD will show how that dynamic has played out on its side of the equation when it posts numbers Tuesday afternoon.

Full preview: If Intel gets its act together, can AMD maintain swollen valuation?

Other chip makers reporting in the week ahead include Texas Instruments Inc.
TXN,
-1.31%
on Tuesday afternoon; Xilinx Inc.
XLNX,
+1.26%,
which is in line to be acquired by AMD, on Wednesday afternoon report, when it will be joined by chip-equipment maker Lam Research Corp.
LRCX,
-0.06%
; and Western Digital Corp.
WDC,
-5.23%
on Thursday afternoon.

Busy week for the Dow

Among the 13 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.57%
set to report this week are 3M Co
MMM,
-0.96%.
, Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
+1.13%,
American Express, Verizon, and Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+0.44%,
all of which report Tuesday.

“Near term, we see the company’s COVID-19 vaccine readout as a key upcoming catalyst and believe efficacy in the 80%+ range would suggest a clear role for the product in the market,” J.P. Morgan analyst Chris Schott wrote of Johnson & Johnson.

Cowen & Co. analyst J. Derrick Wood sees tough comparisons for Microsoft especially in its Azure and server businesses, though he expects a more favorable situation going forward.

Full preview: SolarWinds hack may actually be a good thing for Microsoft

Wednesday brings results from Boeing and Apple, while Thursday features McDonald’s Corp.
MCD,
-0.07%,
Dow Inc.
DOW,
-0.10%,
and Visa. Honeywell International Inc.
HON,
-1.45%,
Chevron Corp.
CVX,
-0.30%,
and Caterpillar Inc.
CAT,
-0.13%
round out the week Friday morning.

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