Written by Gary
Companies are freaking out about soaring costs, and are rushing to pass them on to consumers (SPY +1.0%). Yelp data shows more than half million new businesses opened in the past year.
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Why Is Most Oil Found In Deserts And The Arctic?The short-term energy outlook has improved considerably over the past few months, thanks mainly to the ongoing Covid-19 vaccine rollout. A cross-section of analysts now expects oil demand to bounce back to near pre-pandemic levels during the second half of the year, while others are predicting a shortfall and price rally. The same can, however, hardly be said about the long-term outlook, with WoodMac recently causing some consternation after predicting that Brent will change hands at just $10 per barrel in 2050 as renewables rapidly take over. |
| Angola May Privatize State-Owned Oil Firm To Boost ProductionOPEC member Angola was Africas top oil producer six years ago when oil prices crashed in 2015-2016, slashing oil-producing countries revenues and forcing international oil companies to reconsider their exorbitant spending plans made at $100 oil. Half a decade after the price crash that began in 2014, Angola is now the third-biggest oil producer in Africa, behind Nigeria and even behind conflict-ridden Libya. Angola is now betting on reviving its oil industry and jumpstarting its oil-dependent economy, which has |
| Will Big Oils Huge Carbon Capture Bet Pay Off?Were sending carbon back where it came from, Norways energy giant Equinor says, describing its efforts to make carbon capture and storage (CCS) commercially viable in a future decarbonized energy system. Equinor is a joint venture partner with two other oil majors, Shell and Total, in developing the Northern Lights project in Norway, which is planned to deliver carbon storage as a service to help third-party industries to reduce emissions. Big Oil has been using CCS as a means to cut emissions from its own operations. |
| Billionaire Trader: Seismic Shift Is Taking Place In Houston Oil PatchThe energy industry in Houston is in the midst of a seismic shift with much of the discussion and funding now focused on clean energy instead of on oil and gas as it was typical until a year ago, according to John Arnold, who has earned a fortune from trading and was the former head of natural gas derivatives trading at Enron. Theres been seismic shift in the Houston energy industry of late, Arnold wrote in a Twitter thread this week. While most of the talk in Houstons energy scene last year was about oil |
| Rystad Energy Sees Oil Demand Peaking In 2026The accelerating adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and electrification in other oil-consuming sectors is set to bring peak oil demand as early as 2026 at 101.6 million barrels per day (bpd), which would be just around 1 million bpd above the 2019 levels, according to Rystad Energys latest forecast. At the end of last year, Rystad Energy had predicted that global oil demand would peak at 102 million bpd in 2028, noting back then that the push to low-carbon energy and the pandemic would speed up the peak oil demand timeline to 2028 from |
| Can Mozambique Defend Its Crucial Gas Assets?Mozambique has been rightly considered one of the most promising new frontiers of gas production in the world, the Rovuma Basin that is located along the border of Tanzania and Mozambique is assumed to hold up to 150 TCf and most of it in Mozambican territorial waters. Yet before our very eyes Mozambiques Cabo Delgado province, home to the Mozambique LNG project and potentially many more, is spiraling out of control under the constant onslaught of insurgents. The intoxicating feeling of a gas bonanza lurking around the corner, intertwined |
| Here’s what to expect from Chipotle Mexican Grill earningsShares of Chipotle Mexican Grill have nearly doubled in value over the last year, giving it a market value of $42.8 billion. |
| Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse joins sports data company used by top NBA teamsThe NBA head coach joins the board of Noah Basketball, a sports data, and tech company that tracks shooting performance. |
| Netflix falls on slowing subscriber growth. What Cramer and other market analysts would do nowAs Netflix shares decline after earnings, market watchers say this isn’t the end-all quarter for the streaming giant. |
| Scientist who helped develop Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine agrees third shot is needed as immunity wanesThe chief medical officer of BioNTech told CNBC that people will likely need a third shot of its two-dose Covid-19 vaccine as immunity against the virus wanes. |
| Taco Bell is testing its own meat alternative ahead of Beyond Meat trialTaco Bell has begun testing its own meat alternative, giving its vegetarian customers yet another reason to come back to its restaurants. |
| Jim Beam distiller puts $1 billion behind sustainability, diversity, responsible drinking plans“The environment is shifting around us and we need to be consumer led in everything we do,” Beam Suntory CEO Albert Baladi told CNBC. |
| Yelp data shows more than half million new businesses opened in the past year“After a challenging year, 2021 is off to an encouraging start for the local economy,” Yelp data scientist Justin Norman told CNBC. |
| FDA finds poor conditions at Baltimore plant that ruined millions of doses of J&J Covid vaccineThe FDA said a Baltimore plant that ruined millions of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine doses was unsanitary and unsuitable to manufacture the shots. |
| Fire breaks out at Baltimore’s iconic Domino Sugar factoryA fire at the Domino Sugar plant sent white smoke billowing over the Inner Harbor in Baltimore on Tuesday. |
| Formula 1’s expansion in the U.S. is in motion, now it needs a star American driverThe global motorsport owned by Liberty Media agreed to add a second race to the U.S. with a 10-year deal to run in Miami around Hard Rock Stadium. |
| UAE floats movement restrictions on unvaccinated people, Abu Dhabi changes course on vaccine rolloutThe UAE has overseen the second-fastest vaccination campaign in the world after Israel. |
| After Chauvin verdict, business leaders speak out saying fight for racial justice must continueSome of the country’s top CEOs and tech executives shared their reactions to the Derek Chauvin verdict on Twitter, Facebook and in letters to employees. |
| UiPath climbs 23% in stock market debut after one of largest US software IPOs in historyUiPath and its investors sold shares at $56 a piece in the IPO, bringing in $1.34 billion, one of the biggest IPOs ever for a U.S. software company |
| Ethereum Erupts, Small Caps Soar As S&P Breadth Reaches Record HighEthereum Erupts, Small Caps Soar As S&P Breadth Reaches Record High The tsunami wave of monetary and fiscal profligacy combined with an orgy of optimism about vaccinations and a post-COVID world, have sparked the broadest rally in the underlying components of the S&P 500 in history… (487 names on the S&P 500 Index have climbed above their 200-day moving average)
Source: Bloomberg But it was Small Caps that dominated today (after collapsing yesterday). Nasdaq lagged but all the US majors were higher and thelast 30 mins saw the ubiquitous buying panic..
Interestin … |
| “A Tremendous Human Being”: One Of Two Houston Tesla Wreck Victims Identified As Local Doctor“A Tremendous Human Being”: One Of Two Houston Tesla Wreck Victims Identified As Local Doctor One of the men who died in the fiery Houston Tesla wreck that we have been reporting on over the last few days has been identified as 59-year-old Dr. William Varner. His 69 year old friend has yet to be identified, according to ABC 13. Varner was a doctor at the local Memorial Hermann Health System. The health system released a statement on his death overnight heading into Wednesday, stating:Â
Recall, Mark Herman, Harris County Constable Precinct 4, told Reuters that the police will serve search warrants on Tesla Inc on Tuesday to secure data from the wreck. |
| Companies Are Freaking Out About Soaring Costs, And Are Rushing To Pass Them On To ConsumersCompanies Are Freaking Out About Soaring Costs, And Are Rushing To Pass Them On To Consumers One doesn’t have to go too far – a trip to the local gas station, grocery store, or restaurant should suffice – to observe how soaring commodity prices and other costs are bleeding through to the consumer. And it’s only going to get worse: Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark and Coca-Cola have publicly discussed lifting prices, citing rising commodity costs and manufacturing expenses. P&G and Kimberly-Clark’s higher price tags for everyday items like toilet paper and tampons are the first in about two years, as the trade war unfolded, further adding pressure on raw materials. Cost pressures are certainly appearing in company earnings commentaries: while it is still early on in earnings season (less than 10% of S&P 500 companies have reported), Morgan Stanley notes that cost pressures have emerged as a prominent topic of discussion. This development is corroborated by a number of macro data points which suggest that a range of expenses are on the rise. Such surging cost pressures have been best captured by the record prices prints in PMI survey data. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Survey also indicates that companies intend to raise prices in response to these cost pressures. With a strong, demand-led growth environment, Morgan Stanley’s Micheal Wilson writes that many companies will ultimately look to pass along price, but on a more near-term basis the strategist is watching how stocks trade as cost pressures impact results relative to expectations. The charts below that PPI growth is accelerating both for final demand and intermediate demand goods. This acceleration is particularly acut … |
| Millionaire Investors Pile Into Cash As Sell-Side Researchers Warn Of Market TurbulenceÂMillionaire Investors Pile Into Cash As Sell-Side Researchers Warn Of Market Turbulence According to a new E-Trade survey shared exclusively with CNBC, wealthy investors with at least a million dollars in investable assets are becoming less bullish on stocks in early April than they were at the start of 2021. The survey also revealed the number of respondents who went to cash nearly doubled. Overall sentiment among millionaire investors slipped as respondents who say they are bearish jumped six percentage points, from 36% to 42%. The survey was conducted from April 1-12 when main US equity markets powered to new highs. One surprising find in the survey was the number of respondents who went into cash more than doubled from 7% to 16%. Still, the majority (58%) of these wealthy investors remain bullish. The survey findings reveal some insight into the world of retail who have been on a stock and option frenzy since the beginning of the virus pandemic, which began right around the time the Federal Reserve pumped financial markets with trillions of dollars and the federal government unleashed helicopter money and gave tens of millions of folks stimulus checks, where some took the free money and gambled in the stock market casino. Wealthy investors, some of whom fear a pullback in stocks, are protecting gains by going into cash. Simultaneously, the number of institutional desks warning about market turbulence is increasing … |
| Heathrow refuses to allow extra flights from IndiaThe airport tells the BBC that it turned down requests from airlines to operate additional flights. |
| Chanel loses EU court battle over Huawei logoThe EU General Court ruled that the differences between the firms’ logos “are significant”. |
| Climate change: Shipping industry calls for new global carbon taxThe global shipping industry wants governments to tax their carbon emissions as they try to tackle climate change |
| Enjoy bizarre Dogecoin party till it all goes very wrongStock market operators who have been around for a few cycles know the sentiment implications of something like Dogecoin: time to grab the canned goods and head for the bunker. |
| ICICI Securities Q4 results: Net profit jumps 111% to Rs 329 cr; revenue rises 53%Consolidated profits jumped 111% to Rs 329 crore on account of growth in revenue and improvement in margins. Cost to income ratio stood at 40% in the March 2021 quarter, against 57% in the March 2020 quarter. |
| FPIs dump finance stocks amid rising Covid infections, increase exposure to defensive betsThe selling pressure seen in the first 15 days of April was the highest on a fortnightly basis since the second half of March 2020, when FPIs sold $1,453 million (Rs 10,600 crore) worth of financial stocks. |
| The Wall Street Journal: Old U.S. COVID-19 hot spots are the new hot ppotsThe recent rise in Covid-19 cases in the U.S. has largely been driven by a handful of states, many of them the same places that first emerged as hot spots a year ago. Through Monday, about 75% of the previous week’s new cases in the U.S. came from Michigan, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. |
| What’s Worth Streaming: Here’s what’s coming to Hulu in May 2021, and what’s leavingGet ready for the final seasons of Aidy Bryant’s comedy ‘Shrill’ and FX’s Australian hitman dramedy ‘Mr. Inbetween,’ as well as the launch of Patton Oswalt’s animated supervillain series ‘M.O.D.O.K.’ and more. |
| IPO Report: UiPath stock surges in trading debut, pushing market cap well past $35 billionUiPath Inc. shares surged out of the gate on their first day of trading Wednesday following weeks where the “software robots” company kept pushing up its expected pricing to catch up to its recent private valuation. |
Summary of Economic Releases this Week
Earnings Summary for Today
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