Tuesday, February 13th, 2024

Well, we saw it happen in real time ahead of the opening bell today: modest selling in pre-market activity gave way to a mid-three-figure sell-off on the Dow, which was in-line with the S&P 500’s selloff by the closing bell. The blue-chip index dropped -524 points, -1.35%, while the S&P was -1.37%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq had an even worse session, -286 points, -1.80%. The biggest loser was just yesterday’s biggest winner, the small-cap Russell 2000, which plummeted -4.15% today.

It was the stronger-than-anticipated Consumer Price Index (CPI) across the board, which is cancelling plans for near-term Fed rate cuts which market bulls had been accustomed to trading amidst. CPI is not the final word on the economy, and stronger numbers on these metrics is certainly preferred to crushingly anemic ones, but lots of air has been taken out of this balloon in one day. All major indices are still positive from the start of the year, aside from the Russell.

That said, stronger-than-expected earnings figures hitting the tape has pointed certain stocks in the opposite direction. For instance, Airbnb (ABNB Quick QuoteABNB - Free Report) reported better-than-expected revenues in Q4 this afternoon, with both Gross Bookings and Adjusted EBITDA above analyst projections. A one-time lodging tax of $1 billion showed up on the company’s bottom line, which sank earnings for the quarter, but shares shot up +10% on the news. (They have since come back down to modest gains.)

Robinhood Markets (HOOD Quick QuoteHOOD - Free Report) have remained up more than +10% in late trading, swinging to a profit on its bottom line to +$0.03 per share from expectations of -$0.01. Revenues also easily cleared estimates: $471 million versus $456.75 million projected. Monthly active users (MAU), RevPAR, New Deposits and Net Interest Revenues all came in better than analysts had been expecting. Yet shares are still off where they had been a month ago.

The biggest winner this afternoon — probably all Q4 earnings season so far, aside from maybe Arm Holdings (ARM Quick QuoteARM - Free Report) last week — was Lyft (LYFT Quick QuoteLYFT - Free Report) , which posted the turnaround quarter of the ride-sharing companies publicly traded existence so far. Adjusted EBITDA of +$222.4 million was a big swing to the positive from -$416.5 million in the year-ago quarter. Shares, which had wallowed well behind chief competitor Uber (UBER Quick QuoteUBER - Free Report) , are up a whopping +60% in after-market trading today.

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