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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights Tesla, CrowdStrike, Chipotle, Ford and ServiceNow

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – July 25, 2024 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Tesla (TSLA - Free Report) , CrowdStrike (CRWD - Free Report) , Chipotle (CMG - Free Report) , Ford (F - Free Report) and ServiceNow (NOW - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

Big Hump Day Selloff Before Chipotle Beats, Ford Misses

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 a mere 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 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 glitch from last Friday reportedly cost $5 billion in direct losses and continues to hamper a wide array of companies.

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.)

Chipotlebeat 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.

Fordshares 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, 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.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

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