Morgans AM: Monday, 23 January 2023

Morgans Financial Limited

US equity markets advanced to cap a choppy trading week, with investors eyeing a big fortnight on the corporate earnings calendar - Dow gained +331-points or +1.00%. Goldman Sachs Group Inc fell -2.54% after the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the Federal Reserve is investigating the investment bank’s consumer business. The regulator is looking into whether Goldman had the right safeguards in place to protect consumers when it increased lending in its Marcus division, according to the WSJ report, citing sources familiar with the matter. The broader S&P500 rose +1.89% to log its best daily percentage gain since 6 January. Communication Services (up +3.96%) and Information Technology (+2.72%) both rose over >2.5% to lead all eleven primary sectors higher. Costco Wholesale Corp rose +2.26% after announcing late Thursday (19 January) that its board reauthorised a stock buyback program of up to US$4B. The Nasdaq rallied +2.66%. Netflix Inc jumped +8.46% after the streaming giant posted stronger-than-expected paid subscriber numbers for the fourth quarter (7.66M versus consensus 4.57M) after the close of last Thursday’s (19 January) session, while the company also disclosed that co-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Reed Hastings would be stepping down from his position and transitioning to the post of executive chairman. Google parent Alphabet Inc gained +5.34% after becoming the latest technology company to announce job cuts, with plans to cut 12K jobs across various areas, roles and regions within the company (equating to over 6% of its global workforce). All of Amazon.com Inc (up +3.81%), Meta Platforms Inc (+2.37%), Microsoft Corp (+3.57%) and Twitter Inc have slashed their head counts recently. Eli Lilly and Co fell -1.43% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected the pharmaceutical company’s experimental Alzheimer’s disease treatment as it had not provided enough trial data. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 rose +1.69%.