Lord Zuck 🤑

Tale of the Tape

Good evening, everyone. It’s Wednesday, y’all! Happy halfway to Friday! 🎉

The market finished flat, but it was quite the eventful day. 😪

We saw a ship-ton of earnings— more than 250 companies dropped numbers. 🚢

Today was a Fed day, too. Hear highlights on tonight’s episode of After Hours. 🌌

Energy was the strongest sector, and it wasn’t close. $XLE surged 3.45% to close at its highest price since April 1. No, that’s no joke— here’s the daily chart:

Can $XLE close above 50.5? Time will tell…

Communications crawled up 0.9% while tech tumbled 0.9%.

Crypto creeps higher. Ethereum inched up 3% and within 10% of 3K. Bitcoin bopped between 56,500 and 54,000.

Google gapped up and gave some back. $GOOG gained 3.16% on the day.

AMD gapped and crapped after last night’s earnings. 💩 The stock opened at 88.85, kissed 89.20, but closed at 84.02. Beep boop.

Apple and Facebook dropped earnings after hours. $AAPL advanced ~2% while $FB flew ~6%. How high can the FAANG gang fly?? 💸 🤷‍♂️

Saira and Megan showed OUT for another episode of Girl$ Just Wanna Have Funds. 💸 🥂 In case you missed it, the two tackle heavy-hitting money questions we all ask ourselves, like What Does Wealth Mean To You?

Pick your poison: Spotify | Apple | Google Podcasts

Here are the closing prints:

S&P 500	4,183	-0.08%
Nasdaq	14,051	-0.28%
Russell 2000	2,304	+0.13%
Dow Jones	33,820	-0.48%

Earnings Round-Up 🤠

Shopify surged after the company crushed estimates. Revenue grew more than 100%. 🤯

Here are the numbers:

EPS: $2.01 vs $0.75 est
Revenue: $988.6M, +110.3% YoY

$SHOP stepped up 11.4%.

Spotify stumbled after reporting earnings. The company beat estimates and met revenue expectations, but the stock tumbled after shaky guidance.

Here are the numbers:

EPS: €0.25 vs €0.47 est
Revenue: 2.15B, +16.2% YoY

$SPOT dropped 12.32% and closed at its lowest price since March 30. Will the streaming service drift lower, or can it find its footing??

Apple reported earnings today and knocked our socks off. 🧦 💥 The company demonstrated record revenue and far surpassed expectations on both top and bottom lines. With the pandemic driving demand for Apple products like never before, the company even saw 67% of its revenue from international sales. 🌎

Apple CEO Tim Cook shared:

This quarter reflects both the enduring ways our products have helped our users meet this moment in their own lives, as well as the optimism consumers seem to feel about better days ahead for all of us… Apple is in a period of sweeping innovation across our product lineup, and we’re keeping focus on how we can help our teams and the communities where we work emerge from this pandemic into a better world.

Here are the numbers:

EPS: $1.40 vs $0.98 est
Revenue: $89.6B, +54% YoY

$AAPL advanced 2% after hours. Here’s the daily chart:

Facebook flew >5% after hours thanks to a Q1 earnings report showing strong user growth and better-than-expected financials— the platform’s ad revenue flew to the moon. 🚀 CEO Mark Zuckerberg commented:

We had a strong quarter as we helped people stay connected and businesses grow… We will continue to invest aggressively to deliver new and meaningful experiences for years to come, including in newer areas like augmented and virtual reality, commerce, and the creator economy.

Here are the numbers:

EPS: $3.30 vs $2.37 est
Revenue: $26.2B, +94% YoY

And here’s the daily chart:

Hold It. ✋ 🛑

Excited for the Bitcoin ETF? Well, don’t get too excited. 😅

The SEC will delay its decision on approving the VanEck Bitcoin ETF until June. While it usually takes ~45 days after filing an ETF application to get a finalized decision, the SEC has decided to extend the Bitcoin ETF’s approval past May 3.

SEC Assistant Secretary J. Matthew DeLesDernier explained:

The Commission finds that it is appropriate to designate a longer period within which to take action on the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the comments received.

Crypto fans think 2021 is Bitcoin’s big break thanks to the Senate appointing Gary Gensler to the SEC. However, the US government still worries about foreign crypto exchanges, price volatility, and fraud related to Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, Fidelity’s trying to launch its own Bitcoin ETF. Here’s CNBC with more on the decision.

Closing The Rumor Mill

Ever since Kansas City Southern announced its sale, rumors have been flying that Canadian Pacific would try to purchase the US-based rail system.

But Canadian Pacific Railway’s CEO, Keith Creel, has had enough. In a conference sponsored by the North East Association of Rail Shippers, he flat-out said:

We don’t want a bidding war. It’s not something we’ll participate in, and ultimately, it’s a war that we would not win.

That comment all but finalizes Canadian National Railway’s purchase of Kansas City Southern to expand its rail boundaries throughout the US.

Apparently, when there’s a rail, there’s not always a way. 🤷 🚂

An Essential Astronaut

We’re sad to report that Michael Collins, an Apollo 11 astronaut, died at age 90 today.

Nicknamed the ‘Third Man of the Moon,’ Collins was the third crew member of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, though he never touched the moon. Instead, he was the pilot of the craft that picked up Aldrin and Armstrong, returning them safely to Earth—a task he was viciously nervous about:

My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the Moon and returning to Earth alone; now am within minutes of finding out the truth of the matter.

Luckily it never came to that, and the three astronauts made it home safely as Collins piloted their craft.

Here are three fun facts about the third man of the moon:

He wrote four books, including the autobiography Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys.

NASA offered Collins the chance to command the Apollo 17 mission and walk on the moon, but he turned it down.

Collins graduated from West Point, though he transferred to the Air Force and became a test pilot.

One last thing— he wrote his own epitaph, so we’ll end with that:

We survived hazardous careers and we were successful in the end. But in my own case at least, it was 10% shrewd planning and 90% blind luck. Put LUCKY on my tombstone.