Big Sell-Off Ahead Of Earnings: Chipotle, ServiceNow Beat

Office, Business, Accountant, Accounting

Image Source: Pixabay

What looked like a simple continuation of a market sell-off this morning got worse. I mean, it clearly did. Only the small-cap Russell 2000 spent any time in green at all today — and that was more than a minute or two early in the session. The Dow, S&P 500, and the Nasdaq all closed near session lows. The Dow dropped -504 points, -1.25% — and it got off easy. The S&P 500 fell -2.31%, the Russell was down -2.13%, and the Nasdaq really hit the skids today, -654 points or -3.64%.

We noted earlier some disappointment from Tesla (TSLA - Free Report) and other big names reporting yesterday after the bell may have put a damper on today’s trading, but there’s also the sudden rollback of the so-called “Trump Trade” from last week, now that President Joe Biden has retired from his campaign to win a second term. Further, the CrowdStrike (CRWD - Free Report) glitch from last Friday reportedly cost $5 billion in direct losses and continues to hamper companies like Delta Airlines (DAL - Free Report).

Also, New Home Sales for June reached their lowest point in seven months. The +617K headline was well off the +640K expected and even the slightly upwardly revised +621K in May. In the four regions, the Northeast was hit hardest, -7.7% year over year, whereas only the South eked out a gain, +0.3%. Supply came in at 9.3 months, with a median sale price of $417,300. These numbers compare to the 3.89 million Existing Home Sales reported yesterday, which was down from 4.11 million the previous month. The slump continues and is likely to until the Fed cuts interest rates and frees up some cheaper mortgages.

S&P flash PMI for July Services and Manufacturing also came out earlier. Services pulled slightly ahead of expectations to 56.0, and ahead of the 55.3 posted a month ago, while Manufacturing went sub-50 for the first time since December of last year to 49.5 — two points lower than expected and below the prior month’s 51.6. Compare these numbers with the multi-year high in July of three years ago: 63.4. (The 50 mark is the level between gain and loss.)

Chipotle (CMG - Free Report) beat earnings estimates for the sixth straight quarter. Earnings of 33 cents per share outpaced the Zacks consensus by two cents, with revenues of $3.0 billion surpassing the $2.94 billion expected, +18% year over year. Full-year comps grew +11.1% on +17% foot traffic year-over-year. This is the first report since Chipotle did a 50-1 stock split in mid-June. Shares had jumped +10% initially after the report, but have since come back down to earth.

Ford (F - Free Report) shares missed bottom-line estimates badly. Earnings of 47 cents per share were well below the 64 cents projected, though revenues swung to a positive +6% year over year to $47.8 billion from $41.50 billion expected. Its Blue hybrid gained +34%, and is now 9% of its global vehicle mix. But the sixth earnings miss in the last 12 quarters have sent shares down -12% in late trading, nearly wiping out the automotive giant’s gains year to date.

ServiceNow (NOW - Free Report), on the other hand, posted another strong quarter. Earnings of $3.13 per share swept past estimates of $2.85 and the $2.37 per share in the year-ago quarter. Revenues of $2.63 billion amounted to a +2.2% beat, on subscriber growth of +23% year over year. Shares are up more than +6% on this report, basically doubling year-to-date gains for the Silicon Valley-based cloud cybersecurity firm.


More By This Author:

Markets Bounce Back; Cadence, Nucor Beat, NXP In-Line
Markets Book Profits; Netflix, Intuitive Beat Estimates In Q2
Big Rotation Continues; DFS Beats Big In Q2, United Mixed

Disclaimer: Neither Zacks Investment Research, Inc. nor its Information Providers can guarantee the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or correct sequencing of any of the Information on the Web ...

more
How did you like this article? Let us know so we can better customize your reading experience.

Comments