Economic & Earnings Commentary

Pre-market futures are still in the red at this hour, but threaten to break out into positive territory compared with where we were overnight. We’re also bifurcated presently: -40 points, roughly, on both the Dow and S&P 500, but -260 points on he tech-heavy Nasdaq.

A report that NVIDIA NVDA will take a $5.5 charge on its H20 AI chips that were believed to be headed to China. The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China has snuffed this out — news reports refer to this as being “curbed” — and sent NVIDIA shares down -6% in pre-market trading. AMD AMD is doing even worse, Broadcom AVGO a bit better — but still all down.

Retail Sales Improve for March: Evidence of “Pull-Forward”?

We remain at the mercy of trade tariff policy for the foreseeable future, and this goes for plenty of economic reports for last month, as well. To wit, U.S. Retail Sales for March reached +1.4% on headline, 20 basis points (bps) ahead of expectations. Ex-autos, +0.5% is a strong showing, even if it is still -20 bps below the big upward revision to February’s number.

Ex-autos and gas swung up to +0.8% last month, equalling the upward revision for the previous month (which itself was ratcheted up 30 bps) and the strongest month since September 2024’s +1.2%. The Control number, which feeds other economic data like PCE (which comes out at the end of this month), was a bit weaker, relatively: +0.4%, from the upwardly revised +1.3% for February.

At a glance, these figures all seem to be U.S. companies getting ahead of the tariffs, which began two weeks ago today, April 2nd. Remain unconvinced? Check auto parts deliveries last month, which rose +5.3%. This resembles more a year-over-year number than a month-over-month one. Perhaps we’ll need to compare these figures to the coming months, but it stands to reason we see a “pull-forward” in this data.

Q1 Earnings Roundup: TRV, ABT, USB & More

Q1 earnings season continues to heat up. Major insurance provider and Dow component The Travelers TRV posted a strong beat in its Q1 earnings ahead of the opening bell: $1.91 per share was nearly +200% stronger than the 64 cents in the Zacks consensus. Revenues of $11.87 billion, however, came in -2.17% from estimates. Shares are up +2.5% on the news, adding to the stock’s +3.6% year to date.

Abbott Laboratories ABT beat on its Q1 earnings by 2 cents to $1.09 per share, while missing slightly on its top line: $10.36 billion versus $10.42 billion expected. Better performance in its Pharma and Nutrition space were offset somewhat by lower numbers from its Diagnostics segment. Shares are down marginally, but still up more than +10% year to date.

U.S. Bank USB keeps the train of big banks reporting earnings this week, notching slight beats on both top and bottom lines: earnings of $1.03 per share on $6.96 billion in revenues outpaced expectations by +4% and +0.6%, respectively. Shares are up +1.4% in today’s pre-market, but still have a long climb back from -17% year to date.

Swedish auto parts provider Autoliv ALV posted strong beats for both earnings and revenues in its Q1 report this morning, beating on earnings per share by +25% and +4.25% on quarterly sales. Again, we sense some “beat the tariffs” trading going on with these figures, but shares are up +8% ahead of the regular session, making up a good chunk of its -12% level year to date.

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Abbott Laboratories (ABT) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Autoliv, Inc. (ALV) : Free Stock Analysis Report

U.S. Bancorp (USB) : Free Stock Analysis Report

The Travelers Companies, Inc. (TRV) : Free Stock Analysis Report

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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