US equity benchmarks finished strongly on the heels of the FOMC Minutes but fell back after NVIDIA lowered guidance for the current quarter, states Bill Baruch, president of BlueLineFutures.com.
The company beat Q1 estimates and hit record revenue for Data Center and Gaming. However, the market cares less about what these companies have done and much more about what they will do. This is the environment we are in, and by some consideration, bringing down lofty future expectations paves the way for positive surprises. The good companies had a solid quarter, but just about all have lowered future estimates. NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA), like many, blamed these revisions on supply constraints, the Russian war, and China’s lockdowns. At some point, the story gets stale, which is also a positive. Apple (AAPL) said in its earnings release last month it expects as much as an $8 billion hit to revenue in the current quarter due to, you guessed it, supply constraints (chips) and China’s lockdowns.
Apple has made headlines recently, realizing this potential loss of revenue, and the stock is down more than 1% ahead of the bell. Alphabet (GOOGL) is another. They reported underwhelming earnings a month ago but were smacked again due to a material revision from Snapchat (SNAP). Put this in perspective, Alphabet is a $1.4 trillion company, and SNAP is a $24 billion company. We are not seeing new negative news; it’s the same narratives packaged differently. Therefore, we believe the market is at the onset of seller’s exhaustion.
As we head into the back half of the week, we are watching Apple, Alphabet, and NVDA extremely close. These are the first, fourth, and eighth-largest companies by market cap in the S&P 500 (SPX). If they stop going down on bad news and finish the week strongly, we believe it will speak volumes about such sellers’ exhaustion.
Developing this morning, Alibaba (BABA) crushed earnings expectations and helped the S&P briefly stick its nose above 4000 ahead of the opening bell. The first revision of Q1 GDP was actually worse than expected at -1.5% versus 1.3% on the first look. Initial Jobless Claims beat expectations at 210k, but Continuing Claims broke a streak of six consecutive weeks of trending lower.
Price action is at or near session highs and we remain cautiously bullish in bias, but these indices are certainly not in the clear. In fact, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq (NDX) are both testing major three-star resistance levels at 4001.75-4004.75 and 12,034-12,075. What will matter most as the session unfolds is that upon gyrations, and waves of weakness that buyers show up and the market does not find one of those late-week air pockets of heavy selling. For now, both are battling at and above our Pivot and point of balance that aligns with our momentum indicator.
Crude Oil has continued a consolidation at the upper end of its range and just below significant resistance. Yesterday’s weekly EIA inventory report was not bullish, but Crude’s ability to respond to support and battle back on the session speaks to how fundamentally tight this market is, bullish. Additionally, the inability to yet retreat sharply from overhead resistance also speaks to how the underlying fundamentals remain extremely bullish. Such a tight supply-demand landscape is something we have been talking about since mid-2021 and the spare capacity narrative, or lack thereof, is front and center. Prices were boosted overnight when the Saud Aramco CEO warned of the lack of spare capacity.
We find such a tight consolidation at elevated levels as near-term bullish and believe Crude Oil is building for its next leg higher. Still, we must see a closeout above major three-star resistance at 111.82-112.39.
Gold and Silver are off session highs, and if you are purely watching futures markets such as the US Dollar Index (flat) and Treasuries (firm) you may be wondering why. The explanation is easy and clear, the US Dollar surged overnight against a weakening Chinese Yuan, accounting for a two-day move of 1.6%. Although Gold and Silver commonly have moves of 2% or more, this is a large swing for the currency complex. This morning, the second look at Q1 GDP was revised worse, a contraction of 1.5% versus -1.3%. The GDP read, coupled with yesterday’s Durable Goods Orders miss and a poor New Home Sales earlier this week, is something that could help buoy the wave of weakness in the face of the elephant in the room, the Chinese Yuan. Tomorrow, we do get the Fed’s preferred inflation indicator, Core PCE.
Price action is back to the lower end of its recent range after both Gold and Silver stalled against first key resistance levels overnight. Yesterday’s June Options Expiration will help loosen the screws in the market and we believe this opens the door to the upside, but this expiration is still underway as it continues into the June futures contract through the end of the month.
Learn more about Bill Baruch at Blue Line Futures.
