Wentz Weekly: Disney’s “Significant Transformation”

Wentz Weekly Insights
Wentz Weekly: Disney’s “Significant Transformation”

Recent Economic Data

• The U.S. trade deficit was $67.4 billion in December, close to expectations of a $69 billion deficit and larger than the $61 billion deficit in November. The wider deficit in December was due to a 1.3% increase in imports (to $317.6 billion) and a 0.9% decline in exports (to $250.2 billion). For calendar year 2022, the good and services deficit increased $103 billion, or 12.2%, from 2021. Exports increased $453.1 billion, or 17.7%, while imports increased $556.1 billion, or 16.3%.

• Consumer credit increased $11.56 billion in December, about half of what was expected and follows a large $33.1 billion increase in November, to a new record high of $4.78 trillion. Revolving credit, for things like credit cards, rose $7.2 billion or slowing to an annual rate of 7.3%, the first time annual rate was below 10% in months. Non-revolving credit, like mortgages, auto loans, student loans, rose $4.3 billion, or at an annual rate of 1.5%. For all of 2022, consumer credit rose 7.8% with a very strong 14.8% increase in revolving credit and a 5.6% increase in nonrevolving credit. This report confirms recent data that consumers slowed spending in December.

• Consumer credit increased $11.56 billion in December, about half of what was expected and follows a large $33.1 billion increase in November, to a new record high of $4.78 trillion. Revolving credit, for things like credit cards, rose $7.2 billion or slowing to an annual growth rate of 7.3%, the first annual rate below 10% in months. Non-revolving credit, like mortgages, auto loans, student loans, rose $4.3 billion, or at an annual rate of 1.5%. For all of 2022, consumer credit rose 7.8% with a very strong 14.8% increase in revolving credit and a 5.6% increase in nonrevolving credit. Recent data has shown us consumers slowed spending in December and this data supports that view again but is also importantly still increasing as consumers’ excess savings continue to dwindle.

• The number of unemployment claims filed the week ended February 4 was 196,000, a slight increase of 13k from the prior week with the four-week average at 189,250. The number of continuing claims was 1.688 million, up 38k from the prior week, with the four-week average up slightly to 1.645 million.

• The 30-year prime mortgage rate held relatively unchanged for the latest survey week, now at 6.12%, up from 6.09% the prior week.

• The preliminary read on the consumer sentiment index for the first week of February survey was 66.4, up from 64.9 in January. The current conditions index was 72.6, rising from the prior month and the highest since 2021, likely helped from stocks solid start to the year. The expectations index fell, however, to 62.3 which was below expectations and falling from 62.7 in January. The important one year ahead inflation expectation increased for the first time in several months, rising to 4.2% from 3.9% in January which may add to concern regarding the inflation picture. The 5-10 year ahead inflation expectation held steady at 2.9% as expected.

Company News

• Google said it would unveil a chatbot for feedback called Bard AI, as it follows through on its earnings call when it said it is pushing further into artificial intelligence. It follows a wave of AI announcements, most notably, Microsoft’s multibillion dollar investment in ChatGPT maker, OpenAI, which is expected to roll out on Bing soon. Later in the week shares of Google fell after a promotional video on the service shared incorrect information and after the launch event failed to impress.

• After a WSJ report, CVS said after its earnings release it agreed to a deal to acquire Oak Street Health, a primary care clinic, for $39/share, representing a value of $10.6 billion. It was in early January that Bloomberg reported a deal for $10 billion was close, but a week later Axios said a deal would likely not happen.

• After cutting prices on some of its Model Y version in effort to increase demand, Tesla said it will raise the price after changes in tax rules expanded the number of people who can take advantage of the $7,500 tax credit under the “Inflation Reduction Act.”

• Apple is reportedly expanding its testing efforts for its new buy now pay later service to its retail employees, a sign the service will be fully rolled out soon. The service was initially going to be launched with iOS 16, but at the time the company was having significant technical challenges in rolling out the service.

• Warner Bros Discovery said it will keep Discovery+ a stand-alone service, after it was thought it would be combining it with HBO Max into a single service. The company came to this conclusion after changing their view that most of the over 20 million Discovery+ subscribers would not pay a higher price for a combined service.

• The antitrust authority of the UK (the CMA) said it provisionally found competition concerns around the combination of Activision Blizzard and Microsoft and said it will welcome responses over the next six weeks of possible remedies, which regulators would consider certain divestitures as feasible remedies in the case.

• Earnings highlights:
• Video game developer Activision Blizzard easily beat expectations with strong performances from its flagship Call of Duty franchise, but avoided providing guidance due to its pending acquisition from Microsoft.
• Uber quarterly results beat expectations, its free cash flows and EBITDA were positive thanks to better bookings and more trips than expected. The company’s EBITDA forecast was well above estimates driven by its cost cutting efforts, better driver supply, and stronger growth.
• It was a complete opposite quarter for Lyft – the company missed expectations in the quarter but its guidance for Q1 was well below estimates due to reduced pricing from competitive efforts.
• Chipotle was lower after missing expectations with comparable store sales that were lower than expected, +5.6% versus the consensus of +7.0%, and follows +10.1% and +7.6% in the prior two quarters.
• CVS results beat expectations, revenue much greater than consensus and reaffirms guidance that is in line with analysts’ consensus estimates. Confirmed its $10.6 billion acquisition of Oak Street Health.
• Buy now pay later servicer Affirm reported quarterly results that missed expectations while it lowered guidance for the full year for the second straight quarter citing execution issues around pricing, higher funding costs, slowdown in discretionary spending, but announced cost cutting plans including a 20% reduction in its workforce.
• Casino stocks like MGM and Wynn were higher after reporting better than expected quarterly results driven by strength in Las Vegas and a recovery in Macau over pent-up demand in China after Covid restrictions were eased.

Other News

• In one of the longer State of the Union speeches of the past few decades, which lasted one hour and twelve minutes, President Biden discussed many topics, but the most followed by the markets were his remarks on the debt limit and his push for a tax on billionaires and stock buybacks. The address could be seen as the start of his reelection campaign, sounding optimistic on his aggressive agenda, which will be far more difficult given the divided Congress. Biden called out the tax system again and proposed quadrupling the surtax on corporate stock buybacks, which is currently 1%, as well as proposing a new billionaires’ tax – not giving any more detail, both of which remain very unlikely. The debt limit was a major headline, gaining boos from Republicans, with Biden bringing up no change to entitlements like Social Security and Medicare but not mentioning cuts to spending.

• Russia said in a statement last week it will cut oil production by 500k barrels/day in response to international sanctions, equal to about 5% of its output. The statement said it is “fully selling” the volume it has produced, but will not sell to those directly or indirectly following western nations’ price cap, which it cited as the reason for its production cuts. Western nations agreed to ban finance, brokering, and insuring seaborne Russian oil that is priced over $60/barrel which has been in place since the first week of December. Crude oil closed last week just under $80/barrel.

• Fed Talk:
• Chairman Powell’s Q&A at the Economic Club of Washington DC was the main event last week that reiterated much of what we already heard, but markets were particularly focused since this was Powell’s first remarks since the very strong employment report the Friday prior. Regarding the labor report, Powell said the strong jobs gains shows why this is a process, will take a significant period of time, and “is not going to be smooth.” He explained how the disinflation process has started with goods, how disinflation is expected to have begun with core housing but not yet showing in the numbers, but there is still no signs of disinflation occurring in core services excluding housing, which is the biggest concern. However, market appear more focused on his comments that inflation is expected to continue to move lower this year and the “disinflation process” has started. It was a choppy trading session after Powell’s comments, with stocks and bonds trading higher, then lower, then moving higher toward the close.
• Atlanta Fed President Bostic said Monday a robust labor report “would translate into us raising interest rates more than I have projected right now”, adding if that strength persists it means the Fed has even more work to do which would translate to raising rates further. He said it is still the base case though, that rates will rise to 5.1% (two more hikes).
• Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari said the stronger jobs report shows the Fed has more work to do in tightening policy, with the economy and wage growth still too hot. He is now expecting the rate should be increased to 5.4% (3 more hikes). He said so far, the data hasn’t shown anything yet to lower the path of rate hikes, and the Fed still needs to raise rates “aggressively to put a ceiling on inflation” then let policy work its way through the system.
• NY Fed President Williams said inflation has been easing in recent months, but it is still not enough to stop the Fed from raising rates, calling for another two rate increases for a peak rate in line with Fed projections.
• Fed Governor Waller had similar remarks, saying he is not seeing signals the inflation is declining as much as some people think, it is a real problem, and those are reasons for the ‘higher for longer’ message. He noted he is preparing for a “longer fight” against inflation.

• It is also worth noticing interest rate options show investors are starting to bet rates will reach 6% by the end of the year (a full percent above the Fed’s projections, and 1.5% above the markets projections).

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