Markets Await New Home Sales Data

Pre-market futures are picking themselves up again this morning, with the Dow adding +126 points, the S&P 500 +33 points, the Nasdaq +178 and the small-cap Russell 2000 is up +10 points. Over the past five trading days, the Dow is -1.8%, the S&P 500 -2.3%, the Nasdaq -3.8% and the Russell 2000 -4.0%. All indexes are still up year to date besides the Russell, although the Nasdaq is hanging on by less than a percentage point.

We see some key Q4 earnings reports ahead of today’s open, but we don’t have any major economic reports hitting the tape. This comes later this morning, when New Home Sales for January are reported at 10am ET. As we saw elsewhere in recent Housing data, numbers remain weak as long as mortgage rates remain above +7% — which they will as long as the Fed keeps interest rates at current levels.

New Home Sales are expected to reach 671K, beneath the 698K registered for December but still up from the 12-month low 615K back in October. The high month over the past year was back in April: 738K. The last time we registered over 1 million in new home sales was back in October of 2020.

NVIDIA Reports After Close

If you’re just checking in with Zacks.com for the first time in a month, you may not know that NVIDIA (NVDA) reports Q4 earnings after the closing bell today. Estimates are for significant growth to continue: +60% on earnings, +70% on revenues. This is rare air for any company, let alone one worth $3 trillion in market cap.

Salesforce (CRM) also reports Q4 results this afternoon. The Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated company looks to bounce back from a rare earnings miss a quarter ago. Expectations are for +13.5% earnings growth and +8% on revenues. Still nothing to sneeze at, but not at the levels NVIDIA has.

Q4 Earnings This Morning: TJX, LOW, BUD

It’s not normally spoken in the same breath of other big-box retailers, but The TJX Companies (TJX) — parent of TJ Maxx, Marshall’s, HomeGoods and more — is more than twice the size of Target (TGT). Anyway, shares are up +3.7% in early trading today on beats for both top and bottom lines in Q4: earnings of $1.23 per share versus expectations of $1.16, revenues $16.35 billion versus $16.20 billion. Comps rose +5% for the quarter, although the comps guide moved down a bit.

Lowe’s (LOW) also outperformed estimates ahead of today’s open, with earnings of $1.93 per share a solid dime ahead of the Zacks consensus, while revenues of $18.55 billion in the quarter outpaced expectations by +1.13%. The home improvement retailer posted the first positive overall comps in two years, albeit by +0.2%. Shares are up +2.7% in early trading.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), better known by its ticker symbol, is up +8% after a big beat on its bottom line — earnings of 88 cents per share versus expectations for 72 cents, for a +22% outperformance — while revenues outpaced projections by +2.5% to $14.84 billion in the quarter. Overall volumes were down, but partially due to a continued drag from China. Normalized EBITDA was +10% in the quarter.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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