Good evening, everyone. Records are meant to be broken, and today was a record day. 🏆
Every major index closed in positive territory. The Nasdaq led the pack, gaining 2.5%. The Russell 2000 rallied 2.3% and closed at a new all-time high. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones also finished at record highs. 💚 🙌
Tech was the strongest sector as $XLK cruised 2.14%. Communications broke out to blue skies— see the charts below.
Industrial and energy finished flat while Financials fell 0.30%.
Bitcoin bopped and ticked 58K for the first time since February 21st.
The semis had a strong session. 💪 VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF $SMH surged 4.2%. $AMD advanced 4.79%, and $TSM snapped back 6%.
Freeport McMoRan flew 8.7% and closed $0.61 off its February high. $FCX has soared more than 600% since its March bottom. 🚀 🚀
The Memestocks had a mellow day. $GME dropped 2% while $AMC advanced 4.4%. Will these freaks fly this Friday?? Time will tell… ⏳
Novavax is trending after hours— the stock’s up ~20%. The company’s vaccine showed an efficacy of 96.4% against the original Covid strain in a UK trial. Read the press release here.
Here are the closing prints:
| S&P 500 | 3,939 | +1.04% |
| Nasdaq | 13,398 | +2.52% |
| Russell 2000 | 2,338 | +2.31% |
| Dow Jones | 32,485 | +0.58% |
Communications Carried On
Communications cruised to a new all-time high. The sector ETF $XLC accelerated 1.9% as individual stocks like Facebook flew 3.4% and Google gained 3.16%.
Here are a few daily charts. Can communications keep carrying on?❓Place your bets…
Communication Services Select Sector SPDR® $XLC
Facebook $FB
Alphabet $GOOGL
Jobless Claims: Some Good News
Here’s some good news for your Thursday evening: this morning’s jobless claims report came in at 712,000, close to the lowest number in a whole year. 🥳 🎉
The last “normal times” report was March 7, 2020. It was 210,000. Since then, the highest number of jobless claims was 7 million in late March, 2020.
Here’s Crossing Wall Street with more on the (hopefully) healing economy.
Persistence Pays 💰💰
Have you ever done something for 5,000 straight days? What if we told you that you could make $69M if you did?
That’s exactly what digital artist Beeple figured out. Every day for the last 5000 days (~13.7 years), he has created a new piece of art. Late last year, he started selling them as NFTs, and over the course of 5 months, some of his pieces have appreciated with 9,900% growth— needless to say, there’s always a frenzy for his latest work.
Earlier today, his auction for “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS,” a mosaic of all 5,000 pieces, closed at a staggering $69,346,250. The craziest part? The price in the digital auction was only $14M an hour before the deal ended… then the whales got involved. 🐳
Beeple’s thoughts? They’re probably best summed up by his tweet:
Holy fu**.
Yeah, Beeple, we agree. 😅
March m-AD-ness
Question: Who misses March Madness even more than the fans?
Answer: The advertisers. And they miss it badly.
With less than a week before the tournament’s kickoff, CBS has officially “virtually sold out” of all advertising space for the event.
Jon Diament, CRO of Turner Sports (who helps CBS with advertising), said the two companies have “never billed as much” as they have for this year’s edition. Diament also said:
Financially, we’ve never been in better shape. This is the best year we’ve ever had.
Considering the 2019 tournament brought in ~$910M, they’re not doing too shabby this year. 😂
The top five advertising industries in 2021 will be insurance, auto (can’t wait for the Buick commercials), financial, telco, and restaurants.
Earnings Round-Up
Ulta Beauty broke down after hours as the company beat earnings estimates, but guidance for 2021 fell short of expectations. 🤷 💄
Here are the numbers:
EPS: $3.41 vs $2.37 est.
Revenue: $2.2B, -4.8% YoY
Ulta CEO Mary Dillon also announced her resignation. The CEO shared:
It has been the honor of my career to lead the Ulta Beauty family for the last eight years and a true joy to have been inspired by our dedicated associates and beauty-loving guests daily. Our strategies, culture and continuous innovation have strengthened our business model, ensuring we are well-positioned to continue leading the industry. Throughout my time with the company, I have worked closely with our board on strategic succession plans, and I believe now is the right time to begin a CEO transition. Dave is a world-class business leader with incredible passion, deep beauty expertise, unwavering drive and a values-based leadership style. The board, executive team and I could not be more thrilled to congratulate and support Dave as he takes this new role. There is no one better- suited to unlock even more beautiful possibilities.
Vail Resorts also reported earnings after hours. ⛷️ ⛷️ The ski resort operator beat earnings estimates, but revenue collapsed ‘cause of COVID. 👎
Here are the numbers:
EPS: $3.62 vs $2.24 est.
Revenue: $684.3M, -26% YoY
Rob Katz, Vail’s Chief Executive Officer, commented on this year’s season:
Our results continued to improve in January and February as we expanded capacity with more open terrain as conditions improved and as certain COVID-19 related restrictions eased. Additionally, as more reservations became available after the peak holiday period, we have seen a significant improvement in lift ticket purchases. Our ski school, food and beverage and retail/rental businesses continue to be more significantly impacted than visitation due to the significant capacity and operating restrictions associated with COVID-19. While our U.S. resorts saw material improvements in financial performance since the peak holiday period, Whistler Blackcomb’s financial performance continues to be severely impacted by the continued closure of Canadian borders to international travel, a trend that will likely continue through the rest of the season.
$MTN was flat after hours.
Buffett’s 💯 Billion
Warren Buffett just joined the 💯 club— $100B, that is.
At 90 years old, the billionaire’s net worth soared past $100B this week (Berkshire shares broke $400k yesterday 💰). That puts Buffet in the same league as Bezos, Bill Gates, and Elon.
Warren Buffet’s hefty net worth is primarily due to the success of his real estate conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway. So far this year, Berkshire Class A shares are up 15%.
Another cool fact about Buffett? He’s been donating a ton to charity since 2006. Since the early 2000s, he’s donated over $37B.
Not bad for the Nebraska native. 💰💪💰
Links That Don’t Suck
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