Pre-Market Rebound

Pre-market futures are busy climbing out of the deep hole Monday’s market dug for itself, particularly on the blue-chip Dow index. Tariff concerns and possible military conflict with Iran are issues that have not gone away, but neither have they poisoned the well. The Dow is up +138 points, the S&P 500 is +11, the Nasdaq +113 and the small-cap Russell 2000 is +4 points at this hour.
 

Q4 Earnings Roundup This Morning: HD, PLNT & More

Home Depot HD beat earnings estimates in its Q4 report out this morning by 20 cents per share: $2.72 versus $2.52, for a +8% earnings beat. Revenues also outperformed, albeit by a much slimmer margin: +0.05% to $38.2 billion for the quarter. Shares are up +2.8% in the pre-market, adding to its +9.5% gains year to date. 

Planet Fitness PLNT outpaced estimates on both top and bottom lines: earnings of 83 cents on revenues of $376.26 million beat the Zacks consensus by +5% and +3%, respectively. At +10.5% revenue growth year over year, we see Planet Fitness slipping below its +11.2% annualized revenue growth rate over the past five years. Shares are down -5% in early trading, compounding the -16% losses the stock has seen year to date.

Elsewhere, Keurig Dr Pepper KDP surpassed earnings by a penny to 60 cents per share, department store Dillard’s DDS improved on earnings estimates by a solid dime to $10.08 per share, and Constellation Energy CEG did likewise, posting $2.30 per share. Shares of each of these companies are up +2.7%, +1.4% and +1.7%, respectively.
 

Case-Shiller Home Price Index

Case-Shiller home prices are out this morning for the month of December — not government-shutdown-delayed; these numbers are always this far in arrears — with the 20-city survey matching the previous month’s +1.4%. We’re generally at the same levels we’ve maintained since late summer of last year, and well off the +4.7% home price gains we saw in January of last year.

Chicago led the 20-city survey for the second-straight month, +5.7% year over year, followed by New York City at +5.0% and Cleveland +3.4%. (The return to big cities has been the new narrative since the Covid-era exodus from such places.) Meanwhile, Tampa continues its 13-month skid, falling another -3.9% year over year. Phoenix and Dallas were both -1.4% in December, and Miami was -1.0%.

What to Expect from the Stock Market Today

After today’s open, new Consumer Confidence numbers from The Conference Board come out for February. Expectations are for the headline number to buoy up to 88.6 from a steep drop to 84.5 the prior month — which was -9.7 points month over month. However, if the recent University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is any gauge — and they are independent surveys — we may expect this weakness to be a bit more pervasive, as that February CSI print came in near three-year lows.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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