Morning Reads
- Oil Climbs as Gaza Tensions Rise, Saudi Arabia Hikes Prices
- Global Gas Glut to Be Delayed by Another Year
- Russia’s War Economy Starves Crucial Oil Industry of Manpower
- Xi And Macron Meet to Confront Trade Tensions
- China Is Buying Gold Like There’s No Tomorrow
- Global Housing Shortages Are Crushing Immigration-Fueled Growth
- What It’s Like to Be a Regional Fed President On the Road
- At $2 Million Per Minute, Treasuries Mint Cash Like Never Before
- Lamborghini Bros No More: Crypto Is Creating a New Wealth Effect
- Bill Gross Is the Bond King, But Diversification Is Emperor
- Italy’s White-Collar Mafia is Making a Business Killing
- Credit Suisse’s Last CEO Koerner to Leave UBS in Coming Weeks
- JPMorgan’s Top China TMT Banker Crystal Zhu Said to Join Morgan Stanley
- Buffett Praises Apple After Trimming It, Drops Paramount Stake
- Elon Musk Is Astonished By Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Amassing As Much Cash As Tesla CEO’s Wealth: ‘Wow’
- The Oracle of Omaha warns about AI: What Buffett said at Berkshire
- How Bad Is A.I. for the Climate?
- Tensions Rise in Silicon Valley Over Sales of Start-Up Stocks
- Qualcomm’s Smartphone Future Looks Brighter With AI
- China Makes Cheap Electric Vehicles. Why Can’t American Shoppers Buy Them?
- Li Auto Shares Gain on Strong L6 Orders
- Boeing’s Big Space Test: Using Starliner to Ferry NASA Astronauts
- Australia’s Qantas to Pay $79 Million to Settle ‘Ghost Flights’ Case
- How Online Shopping Is Saving the Bricks-and-Mortar Store
- Target Is Taking Its Popular In-House Apparel Brand Abroad
- Howard Schultz Urges Starbucks to Fix its U.S. Business
- Problems Mount for Group of Seven’s Price Cap on Russian Oil
- Oil Companies Expand Offshore Drilling, Pointing to Energy Needs
- Biden, BP and the High-Stakes Sequel to Deepwater Horizon
- Drought to Deluge: Eastern Africa Bears Brunt of Climate Change
- A Billionaire Wanted to Save 1 Trillion Trees by 2030. It’s Not Going Great
- Geopolitics Takes a Central Role in Supply Chains
- The Treasurys Market Is Getting Squeezed From All Sides
- Traders Pull Forward First Full Fed Rate Cut to November Ahead of Jobs
- The April Jobs Report
- HSBC Has No Plans to Dispose of Further Businesses, Chairman Says
- ‘Your Fund Is Under Attack’: BlackRock Fights to Repel Saba Raid
- What Will Warren Buffett Bet on Next?
- Even the World’s Most-Envied Retirement Plan Is Falling Short
- Calls to Divest From Israel Put Students and Donors on Collision Course
- Utah Lights An Innovative Path To Matching Benefits With Work Realities
- Carvana Father-Son Duo Make $11 Billion in 3,000% Stock Rebound
- Google, Meta and Microsoft Apparently Didn’t Get the ‘Monopoly’ Memo
- Google Employees Tune Out Antitrust Threat as Trial Comes to a Head
- Apple Rallies on Upbeat Forecast, Record-Setting Buyback
- Boeing’s Latest Trouble Is a Jet Part Caught Up in Russia Sanctions
- Sony, Apollo Propose $26 Billion Deal for Paramount Global
- Startups Go to Hollywood: AI Movies Aren’t Just a Gimmick Anymore
- The Rise of Food Robots Butchering Cows and Packing Veg
- Starbucks Is Running Out of Americans to Drink Its Expensive Coffee
- Jean Paul Gaultier Owner Puig Shares Rise on First Day of Trading
Options
PREMIUM
Prepper
The final frontier
After the space shuttle program was retired in 2011, NASA turned to private companies for space station deliveries. SpaceX began supply runs over a decade ago, before launching its first astronauts in 2020 and ending NASA's reliance on Russian spacecraft. It also beat Boeing (BA) in the race to space under NASA's Commercial Crew Program after the U.S. aerospace giant, whose resume goes back to the Apollo moon missions, ran into issues and delays during flight testing and manufacturing.
Out of this world: Commercial Crew was structured as a multi-tiered competition to get private sector companies to produce the most cost effective, innovative and safe way to get to the International Space Station. While SpaceX (SPACE) has already sent nine manned missions to the ISS with its Crew Dragon capsule, Boeing's Starliner is finally arriving to the launch pad. There's a lot on the line for the company, which has incurred $1.4B in accounting losses for the program, as well as recent reputation problems ranging from crashes of its MAX jets to a door plug that blew out mid-flight.
Starliner is set to blast off on Monday at 10:34 PM ET, with astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams on board. The vehicle will launch from Cape Canaveral via an Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin (LMT), and will take 26 hours to reach the space station. Starliner will return the pair to Earth about a week after docking with ISS, landing in the American Southwest with giant parachutes, in comparison to the iconic water splashdowns of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.
Investing sphere: "With another $6.5B invested in Q1, there has now been $286B of equity investment into 1,779 unique space companies since 2015," Space Capital founder Chad Anderson wrote in the latest Space Investment Quarterly. "The total investment in Satellite infrastructure over the last decade overtook Launch for the first time in Q1 signaling that the balance has shifted from getting things into orbit, to developing capabilities now that we're there. Geospatial intelligence also overtook satellite communications for the first time, highlighting the growing demand for these orbital assets."
Woodstock of Capitalism
Warren Buffett wants his expected successor Greg Abel to take over stock investing decisions if he were to step down. "He understands businesses extremely well, and if you understand businesses, you understand common stocks," the Oracle of Omaha said at Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) (BRK.B) annual shareholder meeting. The statement came after the conglomerate posted a 39% jump in its Q1 operating profit, along with a cash pile that hit a record $189B. Despite a major stake cut, Apple (AAPL) is expected to remain Berkshire's largest holding in 2024, though Elon Musk is trying to get Tesla (TSLA) in on the action. (49 comments)
Recovery plan
Trouble at Starbucks (SBUX) has prompted former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz to weigh in on the situation. "I've emphasized that the company's fix needs to begin at home: U.S. operations are the primary reason for the company's fall from grace," he wrote on LinkedIn, adding that the coffee giant needs to refocus on the customer experience after Q2 earnings "significantly" missed expectations. SBUX has declined 17% since then after slashing its guidance. SA analyst Luca Socci has sold his Starbucks position, but The Dividend Collectuh believes the bad news is a buying opportunity. (25 comments)
Earnings estimates
The Magnificent 7 contributes about one-fifth of the earnings growth to the S&P 500 (SPY) (IVV) (VOO) and analysts are ramping up expectations, according to Citi strategist Scott Chronert. Those stocks - Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA) - have seen Q1 earnings estimates rise more than 29%. (Nvidia has yet to report Q1). What about the other 493? Chronert says full-year earnings growth has become slightly less negative amid stabilization.
Today's Markets
In Asia, Japan closed. Hong Kong +0.6%. China +1.2%. India flat.
In Europe, at midday, London +0.5%. Paris +0.8%. Frankfurt +1%.
Futures at 7:00, Dow +0.3%. S&P +0.3%. Nasdaq +0.2%. Crude +1.1% to $78.98. Gold +0.8% at $2,327.60. Bitcoin +0.6% to $64,093.
Ten-year Treasury Yield -2 bps to 4.47%.
Today's Economic Calendar
12:50 PM Fed's Barkin Speech
1:00 PM Fed's Williams Speech
Companies reporting earnings today »
What else is happening...
Non-farm payrolls: Is worse than expected news good news?
Paramount (PARA) in formal negotiations with Apollo and SONY.
Tesla (TSLA) sets sights on Europe in latest self-driving push.
Mystik Dan: Kentucky Derby sets new wager record.
FTC's attack on high-profile executive rattles U.S. oil industry.
BTIG sees 'murky' road ahead for cannabis reclassification.
Trump Media (DJT) accounting firm charged with 'massive fraud.'
Major airlines agree on $8.5B Chicago O'Hare Airport upgrade.
ABC News president quits as Disney leadership reviews network.
Are AI stocks in a bubble? Here’s what Citadel's Ken Griffin thinks.