- 3 years ago
STOCKS TO WATCH: $MSFT $GOOGL $BA $KO $META
Wall Street expects Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) to post quarterly earnings at $2.91 per share on revenue of $31.12 billion after the closing bell. Meta shares gained 1.7% to $99.32 in after-hours trading.
Deep Dive: The UK's Online Safety Bill could transform the internet by making internet companies more responsible for content on their platforms, impacting $META's regulatory risk.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported better-than-expected earnings and sales results for its fourth quarter, but issued weak sales outlook for the current quarter. Microsoft shares fell 3.7% to $338.00 in the after-hours trading session.
Deep Dive: Microsoft denies Chinese hackers could have cracked its cloud services.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) reported better-than-expected second-quarter results. Alphabet shares climbed 6.1% to $129.63 in the after-hours trading session.
Deep Dive: Needham Maintains Buy on Alphabet/ Raises Price Target to $140
Boeing (BA) reported quarterly losses of $(0.82) per share, beating analyst estimates by 2.38%. This indicates a 121.62% decrease in losses compared to the same period last year. Sales of $19.75 billion also exceeded estimates by 19.13%, showing an 18.40% increase from last year.
Wall Street expects Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) to post quarterly earnings at $2.91 per share on revenue of $31.12 billion after the closing bell. Meta shares gained 1.7% to $99.32 in after-hours trading.
Deep Dive: The UK's Online Safety Bill could transform the internet by making internet companies more responsible for content on their platforms, impacting $META's regulatory risk.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported better-than-expected earnings and sales results for its fourth quarter, but issued weak sales outlook for the current quarter. Microsoft shares fell 3.7% to $338.00 in the after-hours trading session.
Deep Dive: Microsoft denies Chinese hackers could have cracked its cloud services.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) reported better-than-expected second-quarter results. Alphabet shares climbed 6.1% to $129.63 in the after-hours trading session.
Deep Dive: Needham Maintains Buy on Alphabet/ Raises Price Target to $140
Boeing (BA) reported quarterly losses of $(0.82) per share, beating analyst estimates by 2.38%. This indicates a 121.62% decrease in losses compared to the same period last year. Sales of $19.75 billion also exceeded estimates by 19.13%, showing an 18.40% increase from last year.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Good morning Zinger Nation.
00:04 Welcome back to Benzinga Pro Daily Stocks to Watch, the best place to get some fresh
00:11 ideas every trading day, every morning.
00:15 We are here.
00:16 We are talking about some interesting stuff going on, some stocks to watch, at least five
00:20 ideas.
00:21 We'll talk about some other tickers sometimes as well, noodle some things in there, but
00:26 you get at least a handful of handpicked stock ideas, whether they're good, they're bad.
00:32 Maybe they're just kind of there.
00:34 It has got news catalysts coming.
00:36 Thank you for joining us.
00:37 We appreciate you being here today with us.
00:40 Today is Wednesday, July 26, 2023.
00:45 David Willey, my illustrious co-host is here as well.
00:48 How are you doing today?
00:50 I'm doing fantastic.
00:51 Thank you, Michael.
00:52 A little sleepy because I was out late last night watching the new Mission Impossible.
00:57 I've got to say it's a fantastic movie.
01:00 Can't recommend it enough, but then I'm a big Tom Cruise fan, so I might be a little
01:05 biased, but it really is a great film.
01:09 One sentence review.
01:11 Give us a one sentence review.
01:13 Just some of the most creative chase and fight scenes, the way they integrate these.
01:19 They just highly create a film and it's all about AI, actually, which is going to be coming
01:25 up, I think, in our podcast.
01:28 If you watch the film, that will give you insights into this podcast.
01:34 I like that.
01:35 Go watch Mission Impossible before you watch Daily Stocks to Watch, I guess is the takeaway.
01:42 Well, if you've already watched it, then we'll get right into the list.
01:47 For all you out there who have already seen Mission Impossible, we are now starting our
01:51 list.
01:52 Stock to Watch number one, that's Meta Platforms, which is ticker M-E-T-A.
01:59 Number two, we've got Boeing, ticker B-A. Number three, we've got PacWest Bank Corp.
02:04 That's P-A-C-W. Number four, we've got Coca-Cola Company, with ticker K-O. Stock to Watch number
02:11 five is Microsoft.
02:13 That's ticker M-S-F-T.
02:16 Starting right off with Meta, with posting their quarterly earnings after the closing
02:22 bell.
02:23 Wall Street is expecting about $2.91 per share in revenue of over $31 billion.
02:31 Shares gained a little less than 2% after I was trading yesterday, but now in the morning
02:36 up a little over 2%.
02:38 Meta is just one of the names that you have to talk about if you're looking at stocks
02:43 performing year to date.
02:44 They have just been on a tear, up almost 145% year to date.
02:50 Just a week ago, they were up over 157%.
02:53 A real turnaround.
02:54 I mean, I remember when Facebook changed their name to Meta, and there was a lot of skepticism,
03:03 a lot of stuff going on.
03:05 It's a name that has kind of quietly, as far as I can say, kind of quietly turned around
03:12 since then.
03:13 We had this real high point back in 2021, about $3.78 per share, a huge dip down to
03:20 $90 a share back in November of 2022.
03:23 It's just been a climb since then.
03:26 I think it's been kind of only recently, I feel like in the last month, we've really
03:30 heard maybe two months, we heard a lot of people talking about how big it has come back,
03:36 how consistently and how kind of quietly.
03:38 They've cut a lot of costs.
03:40 They've seemingly done a lot of things right.
03:42 It's going to be important to see what the results of the earnings are going to be, what
03:48 the next steps for Meta are going to look like.
03:51 I mean, I feel like the, correct me if I'm wrong, David, but I feel like I've been hearing
03:56 less about the Metaverse recently.
03:58 Like Meta platforms, ironically, after the name change, after all this stuff they're
04:02 doing in the Metaverse, it seems like they've been cutting costs on Facebook and other platforms
04:08 and kind of making things, the core business models more efficient.
04:12 And I don't know, have you been hearing about the Metaverse recently?
04:16 You know, I haven't been hearing too much about it.
04:18 I mean, so if I can make a slight prediction and we'll see if I'm wrong, but if I can make
04:23 a prediction about what's going to happen in the earnings, I think there's going to
04:28 be a lot of talk about AI.
04:31 Now if we're looking at Alphabet and we're looking at Microsoft, apparently combined,
04:38 they mentioned AI 145 times in their earnings calls yesterday.
04:45 That's why you should all follow Ben Zinger on Twitter, because that is actually where
04:48 I got that from.
04:50 Some great Zinger clearly went through and counted all the times that they mentioned
04:54 AI.
04:55 And, you know, I think Meta is, I'm assuming it's going to be, you know, it's been investing
05:03 heavily in AI.
05:06 Obviously there was, as you say, the whole Metaverse thing, which I mean, they sank billions
05:11 of dollars into, and it seems like it's been relatively unpopular so far, but they've also
05:17 produced their own LLAMA, their own large language learning model, that's going to be
05:22 open sourced, unlike GPT-4.
05:26 So that will be inviting a lot of creativity and they're clearly investing a lot of money
05:31 into AI.
05:32 Now the question that this raises for me, Mike, is, you know, back in 2008, houses were
05:40 the thing and everyone was just really enthusiastic about houses and you didn't know you're in
05:45 the bubble until it popped.
05:47 And my, you know, my question is, can you know that you're in a bubble until it bursts?
05:52 Are we in an AI bubble?
05:54 Because all of these major companies are investing so heavily in AI and they're all seeing their
06:01 stocks perform incredibly well, as you said, with Meta, they've performed so well this
06:07 year.
06:08 But how do we know if we're in the bubble or not?
06:11 You gotta look around and see if there's a layer of soap around you.
06:15 That's a tough question, Dave.
06:17 I mean, that's one of the big questions to grapple with if you're in the markets, if
06:23 you're just a consumer, if you're anybody, even if you don't own and trade stock, whether
06:29 you're in a different bubble, asset bubbles or housing.
06:32 With AI, I think one way to kind of look at the problem is to look at things historically.
06:38 I like you mentioning the housing market, the housing bubble, and look at are things
06:44 just sort of at this crazy exponential growth without maybe underlying, good underlying
06:53 reasons and consistent kind of performance of the factors that would normally go into
07:01 what would make it up.
07:02 So for instance, to break that down a little bit with AI, I think, I don't know, I think
07:07 I think at least that we are in a bit of a bubble.
07:11 It's interesting though, because we are starting to see more and more AI that is actually used
07:17 for business, is used to make money, to generate revenue, to get things done.
07:24 So it's a tricky spot to be in.
07:26 I think some of the crazy things are, I think it was last year, McKinley or Forrester, one
07:34 of the big projection firms or maybe a consulting firm was like, "Yeah, AI is going to be this
07:40 humongous multi trillion dollar thing by 2025 or 2028."
07:46 I think that there can be some pretty darn wildly optimistic projections out there.
07:54 And I think that those type of things are more towards the bubble side.
08:00 But it's interesting because I think more and more analysts and just your average folks
08:05 on the street are maybe looking at AI as slightly less of a bubble recently.
08:11 Although it is odd, I think it is odd that 145 times is a little crazy.
08:18 But it's like big times you could be in a bubble, sometimes you could be at the start
08:23 of computers being invented or cars being invented.
08:27 I would be very interested to hear how many times computers and processors were mentioned
08:35 in some early, probably actually would have been on the actual phone on landlines for
08:41 IBM for the 60s and 70s.
08:45 Scurning calls would have been pretty cool to listen in on.
08:49 So it's interesting.
08:50 There's the optimistic, exciting side of me that says, "We could be at the beginning of
08:56 something really cool and something that genuinely provides a lot of value with all the spookiness
09:02 with that to all of the potential changes in jobs, changes in industries, or we could
09:08 be just kind of in the hype zone of a bubble."
09:11 So frankly, it's hard to tell.
09:13 I think with a new technology like this, it's a little different than something like housing
09:17 where there can be these factors that are these artificial incentives and things that
09:22 are just making an existing type of thing just become more and more perceived to be
09:28 valuable, creating that bubble.
09:30 With a new technology, it's kind of tricky because sometimes it really is not going to
09:34 make the results that people might expect.
09:37 But in some cases, it can make a big difference.
09:40 It usually takes longer than people expect though.
09:42 So my take is that if it's a bubble, it's just kind of this, it's slowly expanding.
09:48 It really expanded in the last year.
09:50 We'll want to watch and see if the realm of AI keeps pushing and expanding.
09:57 I think that's probably a decent sign of some sort of bubbly activity.
10:02 We'll have to watch and find out.
10:05 And I think that's an excellent point.
10:07 And to some degree, maybe it's just tempering how much of the value we put in based on the
10:12 results that we see and keeping track of actual tangible results.
10:18 Now tangible results are what we see with our next stock to watch, which is the Boeing
10:22 company.
10:23 Let's ticker BA.
10:24 Now analysts expected them to report a quarterly loss of 84 cents a share on revenue of 16
10:32 and a half billion before the opening bell.
10:35 And Boeing shares rose about 0.2% to $214 in after hours trading.
10:43 They have now reported they did better than expected.
10:46 And as you can see now, they're at $222 a share.
10:50 That's a good rise.
10:52 So their top line revenue was $19.75 billion, beating street estimates.
10:58 They narrowed their loss per share.
11:00 It was only a loss of 82 cents per share instead of 84 cents per share.
11:06 And obviously all of this will be of a relief to investors in Boeing.
11:11 And also it will be a relief for them that they've confirmed that they will ramp up production
11:15 of some key models that 737 MAX, the 787 Dreamliner, both of those, they'll ramp up production
11:24 both this year and in coming years.
11:27 And that will be, as I said, a big relief for investors as there was both supply chain
11:32 setbacks and manufacturing setbacks this year for both of those model planes.
11:37 And so it seems as actually as if, you know, Boeing is an example of a stock which hasn't
11:43 really shifted that much in the past six to eight months past year.
11:47 You know, it's pretty steady.
11:50 But this kind of report is exactly what investors are looking for, I think.
11:54 Boeing, one of those huge aerospace manufacturers, one of the biggest, along with Airbus for
12:01 airliners, we've seen anecdotally and reports of increased demand for airlines, increased
12:09 demand for airliners, I believe it was Boeing that just had a huge contract with an Indian
12:14 airline about six months ago.
12:16 I still remember that.
12:17 I think we talked about on the podcast.
12:19 So one of the one of the industrial names to watch if you're looking at big industrial
12:24 manufacturing, heavy equipment, aerospace technology, check out Boeing.
12:29 Ticker number three is PacWestBankCorp.
12:31 That's ticker P-A-C-W. Shares went, whoo, surging up this morning, over 35 percent in
12:38 pre-market after a merger announcement with the Bank of California and reporting up the
12:45 quarterly earnings share price down a little bit back down to nine dollars, hovering around
12:52 nine dollars and 60 cents.
12:53 So up about 25 percent now that we've hit market open, but still a big upward move for
13:01 PacWestBankCorp this morning.
13:04 One of the one of the banks that was experiencing some struggles with the whole regional bank
13:08 prices, not not necessarily doing too great on the year, down about 64 percent.
13:14 But this is a good move for PacWestBankCorp shareholders, at least in the short term.
13:21 We'll have to watch and see how that merger goes through with Bank of California, but
13:27 also check out PacWestBankCorp if you're in the regional banking sector.
13:33 Bank of California, let's publicly trade it.
13:38 Yes, B-A-N-C.
13:40 Check out Bank of California.
13:41 We've got a nice move up about 10 percent early pre-market.
13:48 Now we're up about 2 percent, but an interesting move from Bank of California, up 14 percent
13:52 in the past week, 27 percent in the past month.
13:55 So check out Bank of California as well.
13:58 That's ticker B-A-N-C.
13:59 See, sometimes we get those those bonus tickers in there for you.
14:03 So check out Bank of California as well.
14:06 Our next up to watch is the Coca-Cola company.
14:11 That's ticker K-O. Now, Coca-Cola shares are trading higher after the company reported
14:18 better than expected quarterly results, though they seem to have taken a little dip as the
14:23 markets open.
14:26 Their earnings per share were 78 cents versus the 72 cents that were expected, where the
14:33 revenue was about eleven point nine seven billion, which was slightly higher than the
14:39 eleven point seven five billion that was expected.
14:42 Now, this is coming even though Coke did hike their products in the past year, hike the
14:47 price of their products in the past year due to, you know, margins were tough for everyone,
14:52 especially for for food and beverage companies.
14:55 And, you know, I think this will this will obviously again be this is a sign that things
15:01 are going well for beverage companies.
15:02 I know Pepsi also had a sticker P-E-P.
15:06 Pepsi did have a pretty good earnings report themselves.
15:10 And so both of these beverage giants seem to be doing well in the second half, going
15:16 into the second half of 2023.
15:20 Stock to watch number five closing now is the Microsoft Corporation, that sticker MSFT
15:26 reporting better than expected earnings and sales.
15:29 This is a follow up from yesterday, but issuing some weak sales outlook for the current quarter
15:34 and some spotty guidance with a bit of a down move here after the open.
15:41 Now, Microsoft down about three and a half percent.
15:45 One of the interesting things tying it back into meta earlier that that our research team
15:51 found was an article talking about how Meta, Microsoft and Amazon are teaming up on a Maps
15:59 project to crack the Apple Google duopoly.
16:02 Some wild stuff.
16:04 Interesting to hear.
16:05 I mean, Apple Maps and Google Maps.
16:07 I I always use a Google Maps, but I don't know of anyone who uses anything other than
16:11 those two.
16:12 So it's going to be wild if these companies can actually band together and start fighting
16:17 against Google and Apple on some of these products.
16:21 Could be an interesting thing to watch.
16:24 Partnership between Meta, Microsoft and Amazon.
16:28 Will that continue in the future?
16:30 All right, we're going to go back over our list.
16:34 Make sure we got everything and get you out to your trading day.
16:38 Stock to watch number one was Meta.
16:40 That's ticker M E T A. Stock to watch number two was Boeing.
16:45 That's ticker B A. Number three was PacWest Bank Corp.
16:49 That's P A C W with a little bonus of the Bank of California with ticker B A N C. Number
16:55 four was the Coca-Cola Company with ticker K O. And stock to watch number five was Microsoft.
17:01 That's ticker M S F T. Hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday.
17:06 Happy hump day.
17:07 Hope you have a great rest of your week and we'll catch you tomorrow.
17:10 As always, Mr. O'Connor, it's been an honor.
17:13 Take care, everyone.
17:14 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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