Markets on edge ahead of earnings season
Earnings season is kicking off against a backdrop of worries about recession, inflation and profits.
America’s biggest airline, Delta, posted a wider-than-expected loss on Thursday and some of the biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup — are set to report on Friday.
Investors received some upbeat news on Wednesday. The Consumer Price Index showed headline inflation falling to its lowest level in nearly two years. That sent Wall Street scrambling to update its interest rate forecasts; Goldman Sachs economists now see the Fed raising the prime lending rate at its May 3 meeting, but holding off in June.
Stocks fell, however, on growing recession fears. Fed minutes from the previous rate-setting meeting confirmed that the central bank sees a downturn in the second half of the year as all but inevitable. That position was reiterated in a speech by Mary Daly, the president of the San Francisco Fed, who also said there was “more work to do” to raise rates and bring down inflation.
With recession looking likely, corporate profits are in focus. Analysts expect that profits last quarter fell nearly 7 percent on an annualized basis, according to FactSet, the biggest decline since the early days of the pandemic. Some 78 firms in the S&P 500 have also warned investors to vastly lower their earnings expectations, the worst reading since the third quarter of 2019 when the U.S. manufacturing sector was in recession.
The big question for investors is whether the weaker forecasts translate to margin pressure that compels companies “to cut costs, including layoffs,” Quincy Krosby, Chief Global Strategist for LPL Financial, wrote in a note ahead of earnings season. She added that corporate results could clarify the market’s muddled view on the economy. The bond market has been trading as if a larger recession is imminent, while stocks remain in positive territory for the year.
What to watch on Friday from banks: America’s largest banks are seen as a bellwether for the health of the economy. Analysts will likely grill them about their balance sheets and deposit flows in the wake of the turmoil that gripped the sector after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last month.
A positive sign: The Fed minutes released on Wednesday indicated that central bankers see the fallout from the banking crisis as being somewhat contained.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
LVMH shares soar. The world’s biggest luxury group, which owns Louis Vuitton, gained 4.3 percent in Paris on Thursday after it reported better-than-expected revenue from its core China market, helped by the end of Covid-19 lockdown measures. The rally adds billions to the personal wealth of Bernard Arnault, the company’s founder and the world’s richest man.
Amazon’s C.E.O. warns of “headwinds” at its $85 billion cloud computing unit. In his annual shareholder letter out on Thursday, Andy Jassy warned that Amazon’s AWS customers are pulling back on spending, which he expects to put a damper on growth. Amazon shares were slightly higher in premarket trading, and are up this year even as the company lays off staff amid a wider downturn in tech spending.
An appeals court overrules Texas on the abortion pill. The Fifth Circuit granted a partial victory to abortion rights activists and regulators in ruling that mifepristone could remain available for now to patients, but it curbed some access to the drug. Last week a judge in Texas ruled that the drug, which the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2000, should be pulled from the market, casting doubts over the agency’s authority.
JPMorgan Chase executives must return to the office, full time. The bank reportedly told managing directors they must come into the office five days a week in order to be available for strategy sessions and impromptu meetings. JP Morgan and the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell are also tying pay to office attendance.
Industrial policy makes a comeback
What’s old is new again when it comes to U.S. industrial policy. The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed revolutionary new emissions rules meant to speed the green transition and lift electric vehicle sales, in the latest example of its aggressive approach to transforming the economy.
Automakers are wary of the pace of change required by the new rules. But the private sector has already seen big benefits — in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits, grants, loans and other incentive programs — from the federal government’s renewed enthusiasm for investment in industry.
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The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021 committed about $600 billion in new money for green projects, including creating E.V. charging stations to meet what the administration hopes will be the changing needs of consumers.
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In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act pledged $369 billion over a decade for clean energy and climate change mitigation, including tax credits for the purchase of E.V.s produced domestically.
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The CHIPS and Science Act last year committed more than $52 billion over five years in grants, loans, and tax credits to fund semiconductor research and encourage companies to build chip production facilities in the U.S.
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The National Defense Authorization Act last December also included dozens of industrial policy measures involving the private sector.
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This week, the Biden administration announced Project Next Gen, a $5 billion-plus initiative which, like its Trump-era predecessor Operation Warp Speed, will involve partnerships with private companies to speed development of Covid vaccines.
Industrial policy lost its allure in the “neoliberal era.” In the 1970s, economic policymakers wanted to slow industrial growth to tame inflation, so they stopped encouraging firms to “build more factories and produce more widgets,” according to Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution. Instead, officials on the right and left pursued policies that maximized the return of capital to owners and minimized public-private industrial cooperation.
Under Mr. Biden, the U.S. is returning to its earlier approach, using the power of the state to encourage private-sector growth in areas it sees as priorities. But the challenge of implementing all of these initiatives remains. So does the specter of politics, with many Republicans, including Donald Trump, threatening to scythe through the machinery of federal government.
SoftBank pulls back from Alibaba
Shares in Alibaba fell as much as 5.2 percent in Hong Kong on Thursday following a report that SoftBank, the Japanese technology group and one of Alibaba’s biggest investors, is moving to sell almost all of its stake in the Chinese internet giant.
SoftBank, led by the billionaire Masayoshi Son, made one of the most profitable bets in tech history after backing Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder, with an early investment and going on to own as much as a third of the company.
But SoftBank has sold roughly $36 billion in Alibaba stock over the past two years as it seeks to reduce its exposure to volatile Chinese tech stocks. Mr. Son’s initial investment in Alibaba helped put it on the global map for investors.
As The Financial Times reports:
SoftBank’s selldown comes at a pivotal moment for the Japanese group, which is planning a blockbuster listing of U.K. chip designer Arm as it seeks to recover from a spate of failed investments and unprecedented losses. For Alibaba, it will mean the retreat of a longtime backer just as the Chinese group attempts to reinvent itself by splitting into six entities.
JPMorgan’s Epstein ties
New claims about JPMorgan Chase’s ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail in 2019, were revealed in a legal filing on Wednesday, showing the company was aware that he had been accused of paying to have underage girls and young women brought to his house seven years before it ended its client relationship with him.
The details were disclosed in the U.S. Virgin Islands’ lawsuit against JPMorgan. The territory, where Mr. Epstein had a residence, says the bank facilitated his sex trafficking by allowing him to make cash and wire transfers to victims. The bank previously denied that it had helped Mr. Epstein and has tried to shift the focus to Jes Staley, a former executive who managed the relationship. JPMorgan is suing Mr. Staley for failing to disclose to the bank what he knew about Mr. Epstein. He has denied wrongdoing.
The bank knew about the Mr. Epstein accusations in 2006, according to a description of a deposition by Mary Erdoes, its head of asset and wealth management, filed in New York. That same year, Mr. Epstein was charged with a sex crime. He pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution with a minor two years later, and spent just over a year in prison. The filing says Mr. Epstein’s behavior was widely known within the bank.
Employees raised red flags. A risk management team noted in 2006 that Mr. Epstein made cash withdrawals of $40,000 to $80,000 several times a month, totaling more than $750,000 a year, the filing says. Banks are required to report suspicious transactions like big withdrawals that could suggest criminal activity, such as money laundering. The U.S. Virgin Islands says the bank had sufficient information to have notified authorities of Mr. Epstein’s behavior.
In 2011, a senior compliance official flagged concerns about a loan to Mr. Epstein in connection with a modeling agency that had been accused of bringing underage girls into the U.S. The official even wondered whether Mr. Epstein had any actual clients: “I would like to know if in fact he is managing anyone’s money at this point or is it all his money.”
JPMorgan has previously said that Ms. Erdoes had only one recollection of formally meeting Mr. Epstein, “which was the day she fired him as a client,” in 2013, according to The Wall Street Journal. The bank and Ms. Erdoes declined to comment on the latest filing.
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