CPI Effects Linger: Shares Down -1.5 to 2%
Market indexes took this morning’s CPI numbers for January and ran. Unfortunately, the direction was inverse to the CPI report: down. The Dow, while coming off its intra-day low of -667 points, finished -526 or -1.47%. The Nasdaq fell -304 points, -2.10%; the S&P 500 was -1.81% and the small-cap Russell 2000 was -1.55% on the day.
Everything had been going swimmingly. Then, following Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers reported higher than expected for January and the highest year-over-year jump in 40 years, we heard voting Fed President James Bullard from St Louis call for interest rates to come up +1% by July, in order to sop up inflation. A 100-basis-point rise by mid-summer would equate to a 25-basis-point raise in March, May, June and July meetings… but that’s not what investors are playing currently.
Right now, a 50-basis-point Fed raise upon the cessation of the asset purchase program winding down currently is expected at the Fed’s March 15-16 meeting. Keep in mind there is a Producer Price Index (PPI) report for January due out next week — as well as another CPI print ahead of the next Fed meeting — so it’s a bit of a stretch to call this a done deal. But that’s how markets are trading at this point.
The 10-year bond yield did not miss the opportunity to jump over the 2% mark on this news, which is the highest since August 2019 — well before anyone in the world was considering a global economy-crushing pandemic to swoop in and change everything’s trajectory. The 2-year is currently at +1.61%, which does help flatten the curve. Fortunately, it is still a ways from any inversion point, which would again be a bearish market signal.
Expedia EXPE posted mixed Q4 results after today’s close, with earnings of $1.06 per share tromping the Zacks consensus 97 cents expected on sales of $2.28 billion, which missed the $2.36 billion anticipated. Comparing revenues with Expedia’s Q4 2019, the last truly comparable quarter prior to the pandemic, they are -17% on -24% Q4 gross bookings.
Still, it’s the third positive surprise in the past four quarters, with its VRBO unit showing strength in its domestic travel initiatives. The Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company after the earnings announcement is up +6%, after a slight gain during a weak day in overall regular-day trading.
On-line real estate marketplace Zillow Group ZG shares are +17% on this afternoon’s better-than-expected loss on the bottom line — -42 cents versus -$1.24 per share expected — on higher-than-expected sales in the quarter: $3.88 billion versus $3.09 billion. This is the first bottom-line beat for Zillow in the past four quarters, and its +17% boost only partially fills in a -76% share price over the last full year.
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