From the linked article:
2023 was a record-breaking holiday season for e-commerce, Adobe says, as price-sensitive consumers flocked to online stores in search of the best deals of the season.
Online spending rose 4.9% year-over-year to $222.1 billion from November 1, 2023, to December 31 this year (2023), according to the latest data from Adobe Analytics.
Ahead of the holiday season, Adobe had predicted sales would tick up 4.8%.
Last week, Mastercard released its own preliminary data, which found that overall holiday sales—which include both online and bricks-and-mortar sales—rose by 3.1% this year compared with the previous one.
Online sales gained 6.3%, Mastercard said, while spending in stores increased by 2.2%. Electronics, apparel, furniture, groceries, and toys were some of the hottest categories, Adobe said, echoing the results of November’s official retail sales report, released in mid-December.
Jobs, from CNBC:
EVs: destined to fail.
From the linked article:
Sure, sales of EVs keep going up — a record 300,000 cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023 were electric — but the pace of adoption has markedly slowed, and analysts have suggested the country is no longer on track to hit the government's sales targets.
The trickle-down effects of this decreased demand are everywhere.
EVs accumulated at dealerships this fall, even as automakers cut prices to try to entice customers.
Automakers have backtracked on their promised investments: Ford delayed $12 billion of its planned $15 billion investment in EV manufacturing capacity, while General Motors delayed production of key EV models and scrapped a $5 billion partnership with Honda to make cheaper EVs. Even Tesla — once the superstar of EVs — announced it would delay a planned factory in Mexico. Auto execs who were once trumpeting the potential of electric cars are even publicly acknowledging that EVs aren't working.
Rivian downgraded: previously reported. This is the Barron's article.
Rivian Automotive stock was downgraded on Thursday. The company needs new models to maintain growth and new models are years away.
Wolfe Research analyst Rod Lache downgraded Rivian stock to Hold from Buy. Lache doesn’t have price targets for Hold-rated stocks. A Hold rating, for him, essentially means that Rivian shares should keep up with the market.
Shares were down 0.4% to $23.23 in premarket trading, while S&P 500 futures both traded flat. It’s a small move for a downgrade, but Rivian stock has had a rough start to the year.
Shares dropped 10.1% after the company reported better-than-expected production figures on January 3, 2024.
The move left Canaccord analyst George Gianarikas confused, calling the results fine in a research report. But Rivian stock was up about 40% in December. Profit-taking was part of the decline. Share dropped another 3.7% on Wednesday.
Intel, link here from Barron's:
Mobileye said it expects first-quarter revenue to be “significantly below” the $458 million in revenue it generated in the first quarter of 2023.
The company said the forecast was based on an excess inventory of its EyeQ computer chips that was being held by some of its customers. Analysts were forecasting first-quarter revenue to rise to $557.1 million, according to FactSet, a gap of some $320 million in sales.
Mobileye’s problem boils down to overproduction and channel inventories.
It doesn’t mean that auto makers are slowing the adoption of driver assistance technologies.
“The update is clearly disappointing but doesn’t appear long-term thesis changing,” wrote Citi analyst Itay Michaeli in a Thursday report, who rates shares Buy and has a $72 price target on shares. He still sees growth for Mobileye down the road.
Wall Street sees annual sales hitting $5 billion by 2026, up from about $1.9 billion expected for 2024. Baird analyst Luke Junk rates shares Buy and has a $50 price target for the stock.
Mobileye’s cut reflects 6 or 7 million units of excess inventory, he wrote in a Thursday report. That bubble can be worked through in one quarter, but it’s clearly “incrementally negative.”
And from CNBC:
Intel and Mobileye relationship here.
Costco: link here.
Costco Wholesale ended 2023 with a bang as holiday shoppers gave the retailer a boost.
Costco’s revenue jumped 9.9% from a year earlier to $26.2 billion in December, 2023.
It marks an acceleration from November’s 5.1% increase.
Same-store sales, which measure sales growth in stores open for more than a year, also rose more quickly, up 8.5% compared with the same period a year ago. In November, same-store sales were up 3.5%. Excluding fluctuations in gasoline prices and foreign-exchange rates, same-store sales rose 8.1%.
Xerox: link here.
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