New Closing Highs for Nasdaq, S&P 500; NVDA Reports Wednesday

NVIDIA has an excellent track record of beating even strong estimates; we'll see if CEO Jensen Huang's company can keep it going. Read More...

Tuesday, May 21st, 2024

Major market indices were almost all in the green as of today’s closing bell. We were mixed at the start of the trading day, as well — and finished Monday mixed, too — so consider the relative lack of fresh, impactful market-based news having something to do with this. The blue-chip Dow gained +0.17% (still 130 points or so from its recently reached all-time closing high), the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both struck new all-time closing highs at 5321 and 16.832, respectively, and the small-cap Russell 2000 lagged the field slightly, -0.20%.

Bitcoin pulled back after a brief rendezvous above 71K, reaching 4pm ET -2.45% — still near all-time highs for the leading crypto unit. Bond yields were positively static on the 2-year today: ahead of the open it was +4.83%; as of the close it was also +4.83%. The 10-year, on the other hand, dropped notably from +4.42% early this morning to +4.14% this afternoon. Ideally, we’d like to see both of these head lower; an almost 30 basis-point (bps) dip on the 10-year is nice to see, however.

After today’s close, luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers TOL reported earnings. Its fiscal Q2 bottom line reported earnings of $4.55 per share — easily surpassing the $4.13 in the Zacks consensus and well ahead of the $2.85 reported in the year-ago quarter. The company reported home sales totaling $2.65 billion for the quarter, a solid beat over $2.52 billion expected. A narrow upward adjustment on current-quarter guidance and a raise in full-year delivery guidance has helped the stock up another +1% in late trading. Shares are up +29% year to date.

Urban Outfitters URBN also beat expectations on both top and bottom lines. Its Q1 earnings per share of 69 cents amounted to a 20-cent beat over the Zacks consensus, with revenues of $1.2 billion above the $1.17 billion anticipated (which itself was a +5% gain year over year). Same-store sales at both Free People and Anthropology were higher than expected, while flagship stores underperformed a bit. Shares are up more than +7% in late trading on this news, adding to the stock’s +15.6% gains year to date.

Ahead of tomorrow’s open, more companies report earnings. These include Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), Style-Score-A retailers Target TGT and The TJX Companies TJX. Both stocks were tepid during today’s trading, and lag the S&P in growth year to date. Obviously, the Big Kahuna tomorrow comes after the bell, when graphics chips giant NVIDIA NVDA reports Q1 earnings. Big things are expected. NVIDIA has an excellent track record of beating even strong estimates; we’ll see if CEO Jensen Huang’s company can keep it going.

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