Top Stock Market News For Today May 4, 2022

Stock Market Futures Inch Higher Ahead Of Federal Reserve Policy Meeting

U.S. stock futures are crawling towards the green today. This seems to be the case as investors consider the incoming interest rate hike from the Fed. In theory, some would argue that the potential impact from upcoming rate hikes is already accounted for in markets today. Looking at year-to-date losses across major U.S. stock indexes, this is somewhat apparent.

Providing some additional insight into this is the CEO of Quill Intelligence, Danielle Booth. She writes, “Because the market has priced in a 50 basis point rate hike at the Federal Reserve’s May meeting, the focus will immediately shift to just how many half-point hikes the Fed expects to initiate over the balance of 2022.”  Booth also adds, “The Fed would shock markets if it failed to deliver on more aggressive policy via a 50 basis point rate hike on Wednesday.” Between all this, earnings, and the uncertainty in markets, there seems to be no shortage of excitement in today’s stock market news cycle. As of 4:08 a.m. ET, the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq futures are trading higher by 0.17{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, 0.23{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}, and 0.23{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} respectively.

AMD Stock Soars On Surging Sales Growth And Outlook Bump

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) is making major strides on the earnings front now. After yesterday’s closing bell, the company crushed Wall Street’s estimates across the board in its latest earnings call. Diving in, AMD is looking at earnings of $1.13 per share on revenue of $5.89 billion for the quarter. For reference, this is against consensus analyst projections of $0.91 and $5.52 billion respectively. Not to mention, AMD’s quarterly revenue is up by 71{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} year-over-year and sits at a record high for the company. This would serve to further mitigate concerns over slowing PC hardware sales in recent months.

Overall, AMD seems to be firing on all cylinders. This is evident as its growing Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom arm raked in a total revenue of $2.5 billion. Notably, this adds up to an 88{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} year-over-year hike in sales for the division. Moreover, the company’s Computing and Graphics segment is looking at sales growth of 33{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} over the same period. Regarding its outlook for the current quarter, AMD is guiding for revenue of between $6.3 billion and $6.7 billion. This would be well above consensus forecasts of $6.38 billion. On top of that, the company is raising its full-year revenue guidance to $26.3 billion. This would translate to a whopping 60{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} year-over-year rise, a significant boost from its previous outlook of a 31{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} increase.

For one thing, AMD seems to be rather confident about its potentially explosive growth in the quarters ahead. In the words of CEO Dr. Lisa Su, “The first quarter marked a significant inflection point in our journey to scale and transform AMD as we delivered record revenue and closed our strategic acquisition of Xilinx.” Safe to say, AMD stock will likely be in focus today.

Airbnb Beats Top And Bottom Line Estimates As Travel Rebound Persists

Another major player in the news today, thanks to its first-quarter earnings, is Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB). Simply put, Airbnb continues to ride the resurgence in travel from across holiday-going and, surprisingly, working clients. Before we go into the specifics, let’s take a quick look at how the company did. For its latest quarter, Airbnb is boasting revenue of $1.51 billion, above Wall Street forecasts of $1.45 billion. Namely, this represents a solid 70{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} year-over-year jump even as macroeconomic pressure continues to loom. Furthermore, the company’s loss per share is at $0.03, much better than estimates of a $0.29 loss. For year-over-year comparisons, this significantly narrows Airbnb’s net losses to about $19 million from $1.2 billion last year.

All in all, Airbnb does not appear to be slowing down on the operational front anytime soon. Throughout the quarter, the company beat Wall Street’s projections across its key metrics. For starters, the company reported 102.1 million nights and experiences booked, above projections of 100.87 million. Also, Airbnb’s total bookings for the summer travel season are already above pre-pandemic levels by 30{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809}. To add to all that, the company’s gross booking value is now at a whopping $17.2 billion, handily beating consensus estimates of $16.54 billion.

Speaking on the overall long-term trajectory of Airbnb’s business is CEO Brian Chesky. He starts by saying, “For millions of people, they don’t have to go back to an office five days a week and the vast majority of companies are not requiring employees to go back to an office.” Because of this, Chesky argues that Airbnb could continue to experience greater growth in the form of long-term stays. As such, it would not surprise me to see investors eyeing ABNB stock now.

At the same time, Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) is also gaining traction for earnings-related reasons. Following yesterday’s market close, the coffeehouse and roastery chain operator posted commendable second fiscal quarter figures. In brief, Starbucks saw earnings of $0.59 per share alongside revenue of $7.64 billion. Both of which are mostly in line with general projections from Wall Street. Worth mentioning, this is all despite recent COVID-related pressures impacting sales in its international markets.

By and large, Starbucks attributes its current performance to strong demand for its offerings in the U.S. Evidently, the company’s U.S. same-store sales are up by 12{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} year-over-year. It notes that this is thanks to consumers spending more per order across more frequent visits. Additionally, Starbucks’ loyalty program member count is up by 17{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} year-over-year, totaling 26.7 million. However, for the current quarter, the company is anticipating further operational headwinds from the ongoing lockdowns in China. The question now is whether strong U.S. demand can sustain SBUX stock for the short-to-mid term. 

Elon Musk Plans To Take Twitter Public Again In The Long Term

Meanwhile, a report from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) regarding Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) is now making the rounds. In essence, the WSJ notes that Musk is planning to take Twitter public again eventually. For those uninitiated, this would be an interesting development seeing as the billionaire investor aims to bring the company private after closing the $44 billion deal to purchase it. According to the report, Musk is aiming to complete the deal over the next six months.

More importantly, the Tesla CEO is reportedly looking to organize another initial public offering for the firm, “as soon as three years,” after buying Twitter. In the larger scheme of things, this would provide some clarity regarding his plans for the social media goliath. Ideally, going public within the next few years could be a more profit-focused strategy for the whole purchase. Regardless, it appears that TWTR stock’s time in the limelight is not over just yet.

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