ChristopherCarrollSmith

ChristopherCarrollSmith

So we've got macroeconomic forces pulling in a couple different directions right now. One the one hand, the Fed is talking about pumping trillions of dollars more liquidity into the market, which should further inflate equity prices. On the other hand, with coronavirus cases continuing to rocket, we're starting to see economic data fall off a cliff. Consumer...

ChristopherCarrollSmith

I saw a couple articles this morning suggesting that maybe TSM sold off today because forward guidance disappointed Street expectations. That's nonsense. Revenue guidance came in about 7% above expectations, and earnings guidance came in about 15% above Street expectations. This company's guidance crushed it . The stock sold off for one reason only: it is...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

Introduction Strong upward momentum for Lowe's has been slowing lately along with the rest of the market. However, I think the upward march for this stock can continue for both fundamental and technical reasons. Fundamentals Like nearly every other stock in this market, Lowe's is trading at a higher multiple than the stock has traditionally traded at. Unlike...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

We've now had five early earnings reports from the consumer staples sector in the last couple weeks, including today's reports from General Mills and Constellation Brands. On average, EPS for these companies beat analyst estimates by 12.5%, revenue beat by over 3%. That suggests that analysts have underestimated both demand and profit margins for this sector in...

ChristopherCarrollSmith

I did a deep valuation analysis on Citigroup today, digging into their earnings reports for the last three years as well as analyst estimates for the next 4 quarters. Here are my conclusions. In forward P/S terms, Citigroup is nearly the cheapest it has been in the last three years. However, in forward P/E terms, it's nearly the most expensive it has been in the...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

Consumer staples tested and got rejected from a critical trend line this afternoon. The sector has been strengthening due to demand for groceries as economies reclose. Today it also got a bump thanks to news that people with incomes less than $40,000/year may get a second round of stimulus checks. This ought to help juice consumer demand a little. I've also been...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

Bank of America is near a three-month trend line today as the entire market pulls back. $BAC is far from the strongest of the bank stocks, which are a weak sector in general, so it's quite possible it won't hold the support. I've picked up a July 31 option call and set an alert to trigger to me to sell if it crosses below the trend line. Estimize is forecasting...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

$XLNX made a perfect trendline test yesterday on news that it raised its Q1 revenue guidance by 5%. Although revenue is still down 14% year-over-year, the XLNX guidance raise suggests to analysts at Moody's that "broad based demand could be in a bottoming phase." XLNX has a relatively secure market position, with only one real competitor (Altera) and high barriers...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

I've just finished reading through Moody's analysis of Friday's Fed stress test of banks. Honestly, a lot of it was over my head. However, from what I can tell, it looks like Credit Suisse may be the best positioned of the big banks to weather this crisis. In the Fed models, CS survived with more Tier 1 capital than any other bank, beating most of them by a wide...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

I rolled the dice on a far out-of-the-money July 31 Tesla put this afternoon after Elon Musk tweeted at the SEC to suck his cock. If I'm wrong, it's no big deal to lose $60. If I'm right, maybe I'll make a quick c-note when news of an accounting fraud investigation breaks. Possibly relevant: www.valuewalk.com twitter.com Tesla is also under investigation by...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

I am not going to actually trade this one, because Tesla is a monster and you don't short monsters no matter how good the reasons are. But I want this idea here for posterity so that I can kick myself later when it turns out to be right. Tesla is sitting right underneath an extremely psychologically significant resistance level at $1000 per share. It's one of...

ChristopherCarrollSmith

We've now had a blowout earnings report from $MU, in which EPS beat by 11%, sales by 3%, and guidance by 24%(!). We also got guidance from XLNX yesterday that suggested its revenue will be about 5% higher than previously expected, above the high end of its previous range. This suggests that analysts are underestimating the sector's performance as we head into Q2...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

Since I'm unsure what the market will do tomorrow, I have a mix of long and short positions as we head into the close of trading today. One of my short positions is Planet Fitness. It's absurd for this stock to be trading at 50+ P/E and 100+ forward P/E with new coronavirus cases starting to go exponential again. This is well above the multiple that PLNT usually...

ChristopherCarrollSmith

AT&T got a few pieces of good news today that could help lift the stock price further. First, the Federal Reserve announced that it made a large purchase of AT&T bonds on the secondary market. I don't know that this greatly changes the outlook for the stock, but in theory it means that AT&T could borrow more money in the future at more advantageous rates because...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

Kroger reported blow-out earnings and sales today, handily beating both the Wall Street and Estimize consensuses. The stock is moving down, however, perhaps because this quarter's earnings were a blip and next quarter's earnings are expected to be in a more normal range. I could see the stock selling off over the next month or so as the "Covid-19 bump" goes...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

The technology-heavy Nasdaq index has been greatly outperforming the S&P 500, as investors flee to the relative safe haven of technology stocks. However, tech stocks have gotten fairly expensive, and it's hard to see more investors piling into companies like Apple or Microsoft as these companies close their retail locations. I think tech will continue to...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

If you've been following the Wirecard story today, you've heard the big news: 1.9 billion Euros that were supposedly in a trust have gone "missing," and the trustee in charge of it has been suspended. Here's what's getting a lot less play: activist short sellers have been warning about Wirecard's fraudulent accounting practices for *years*. The money likely isn't...

ChristopherCarrollSmith Updated 

Seasonal investors who follow the "Stock Trader's Almanac" approach to investing use June's first downward cross on the MACD indicator as their signal to exit the market until October. We got that all-important signal this week, which suggests that we have now entered the period of seasonal weakness. My experience is that there's money to be made by investing in...