January 30, 2025

Markets:

S&P 500 futures rose Thursday as Wall Street digested recent quarterly results from a slew of megacap tech companies. Investors are coming off a losing session after the Federal Reserve held steady on rates.

Shares of Meta Platforms and Tesla gained 1% and 2%, respectively, while Microsoft shares dipped more than 4% after the companies reported earnings. Meta beat on top and bottom lines, but Microsoft shares faltered after the company’s quarterly revenue forecast disappointed. Tesla shrugged off an earnings and revenue miss. On the other hand, revenue misses from UPS and Caterpillar weighed the indexes down.

Other “Magnificent Seven” names are set to report in the coming days, with Apple’s results being due for a Thursday release. Amazon will soon follow suit, as the megacap tech company reports next week.

On Wednesday, all three major averages ended the session lower as a 4% decline in Nvidia weighed on the market. The declines came after the Fed paused its interest rate-cutting campaign, leaving its borrowing rate unchanged in a range between 4.25% and 4.5%. In their post-meeting statement, policymakers noted that inflation remains “somewhat elevated.”

The U.S. economy grew at a slower-than-expected pace during the final three months of 2024. Gross domestic product grew by 2.3% in the fourth quarter on an annualized basis, while economists polled by Dow Jones expected an increase of 2.5%.

Portfolio:

I have to say it was a bit of a muted response (a safe one so far) to all the earning reports and also the Fed. We are ok with this! The options market was calling for swings as high as 12% in a few names, but we received a bit of a muted response. A few names had the potential to selloff but showed tremendous strength as any weakness was quickly bought up in after hours. This is a very telling sign of where we are in this market and the resiliency it has. We now see monster upgrades coming across in TSLA, META, and a few others to name a few.

Queue is igniting but we do want to be a bit safe still ahead of AAPL earnings tonight. Last major report for the week. No changes needed in current holdings of S, HIMS, and AAPU.   Watch a few key names today and how they trade for flow and price; GOOGL, META, TSLA, AAPL, NVDA, AVGO to name a few. Be ready today, expect a new opportunity to ignite.