Edging higher: S&P futures are currently moving higher following a four-day losing streak. Yesterday the S&P 500 ended the day down 1.16%, but futures tied to the index are now up 0.2%. Dow Jones futures are trading flat while the Nasdaq 100 futures are rising 0.43%.
Are you ready?! Today is Tesla’s hotly-anticipated Battery Day Event. In preparation, CEO Elon Musk took to the Twittersphere yesterday evening to shed some light on what the day’s announcements will entail.
“Important note about Tesla Battery Day unveil tomorrow. This affects long-term production, especially Semi, Cybertruck & Roadster, but what we announce will not reach serious high-volume production until 2022” Musk tweeted late on Monday. “We intend to increase, not reduce battery cell purchases from Panasonic, LG & CATL (possibly other partners too). However, even with our cell suppliers going at maximum speed, we still foresee significant shortages in 2022 & beyond unless we also take action ourselves” the controversial CEO added.
Shares in Tesla are currently trading down 4% in Tuesday’s pre-market trading.
Meanwhile, The Economic Times is reporting that Tesla has held exploratory discussions with Karnataka government officials about setting up a research facility in Bengaluru, India. It says a further meeting is set for later this month, at which state officials will present a detailed proposal to Tesla execs. Bengaluru already boasts major companies such as Daimler and Bosch and EV startups like Ola Electric and Sun Mobility.
When one door opens, another one closes: Deutsche Bank plans to close one in five branches in Germany, according to a report from Reuters. Philipp Gossow, who oversees the DB’s German retail banking, told Reuters that the reduction to 400 branches from 500 would be in primarily urban locations and take place “as quickly as possible”.
Turning to earnings, AutoZone is trading 6% higher this morning after reporting a solid earnings beat. Reported net sales of $4.5B for its fourth quarter ended August 29, 2020, surged 14% year-over-year and beat Street estimates by $400M. FQ4 GAAP EPS of $30.93 topped forecasts by $6.42.
“We see ample positive drivers for AZO and the group in the months/quarters ahead as we believe AZO’s addressable market is growing, share gains can accelerate, and sub-scale competitors are becoming increasingly disadvantaged vs. well-capitalized peers (i.e. AZO)” cheers Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem. He has a buy rating on AZO with a $1,375 price target.
CoreLogic is also continuing its rally after boosting Q3 revenue guidance to $525M-$535M- up substantially from $485M-$515M vs. $480.08M consensus. Adjusted EBITDA is now guided to $187M-$192M up from $160M-$175M with a 35%+ margin.
GameStop is up big in early morning trading (18%) after activist RC Ventures ramped up the pressure on the embattled video game retailer. RC Ventures now beneficially owns approximately 9.98% of the outstanding common stock. That’s up from 9.6% previously. It also says it wants to be more involved in the company in order to procure the best results for shareholders.
After plunging 7% yesterday, Carnival Cruises is trading marginally higher this morning. The cruise giant has has announced that its cruise line, Princess Cruises, is selling two of its ships, Sun Princess and Sea Princess, to undisclosed buyers. This is part of its plan to accelerate the removal of less efficient ships from its fleet.
In deal news, HPE has completed the acquisition of Silver Peak, a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) company, in a transaction valued at $925 million.
And on a somewhat bigger scale, Microsoft has announced plans to acquire gaming firm ZeniMax Media, the owner of video game developer and publisher Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion.
All’s well that ends well: Nvidia has apologized to customers following the much-hyped launch of its GeForce RTX 3080 launch last week. NVDA called the launch “simultaneously the best GPU launch ever and the most frustrating” after the GeForce RTX 3080 sold out almost instantly. “We expected the best ever demand for the RTX 30-series, but the enthusiasm was overwhelming. We were not prepared for this level, nor were our partners. We apologize for this” it wrote on September 21.
