To The Moon

The S&P 500 ended higher on Friday after a jump in unemployment cemented expectations of a pause in interest rate hikes this month, while shares of streaming firms tumbled due to a rate dispute between Disney and Charter Communications.

Market Snapshot

The S&P 500 climbed 0.18% to end the session at 4,515.74 points. The Nasdaq declined 0.02% to 14,031.82 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.34% to 34,838.47 points.

Market Movers

Dell Technologies (ticker: DELL) earned $1.74 a share on an adjusted basis in the second quarter, soundly topping its own forecast for $1.10 a share and Wall Street expectations of $1.14. Revenue of $22.9 billion beat forecasts of $20.9 billion, driven by the company’s PC and enterprise infrastructure businesses. The company also issued fiscal-year guidance that topped analysts’ estimates. The stock was up 21% and set an all-time high of $70.28 earlier in the session.

Shares of Elastic (ESTC), the data analytics company, rose 20% after fiscal first-quarter earnings, revenue, and margins topped analysts’ expectations.

Cloud-computing company Nutanix (NTNX) reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue that beat analysts’ estimates and issued strong first-quarter sales guidance. The company’s board also authorized the repurchase of up to $350 million in stock. The stock jumped 12%.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) fell 12% and was the worst performer in the S&P 500 on Friday. Barron’s highlighted the tasks ahead for CEO David Zaslav at the media company, which is saddled with high debt and multiple challenges.

MongoDB (MDB) rose 3% after the software company’s second-quarter adjusted earnings of 93 cents a share easily topped forecasts of 46 cents. President and CEO Dev Ittycheria said MongoDB “provides developers a unified platform that supports both the foundational requirements necessary for any application and the exceptionally demanding needs of AI-specific applications, making our competitive advantage even stronger in the world of AI.”

Samsara (IOT), the internet-of-things company, surged 13% after reporting second-quarter results that beat analysts’ estimates and raising its fiscal-year outlook.

Broadcom (AVGO) fell 5.5% after the chip maker forecast fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of about $9.27 billion, in line with Wall Street estimates. Broadcom reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of $10.54, higher than $9.73 a year earlier and better than analysts’ estimates of $10.43 a share. Revenue of $8.88 billion edged past estimates of $8.85 billion.

SentinelOne (S) rose 3.5% after the cybersecurity company reported a 46% jump in second-quarter revenue and CEO Tomer Weingarten told CNBC in an interview that the company wasn’t for sale following reports it was exploring a transaction.

PagerDuty (PD) was down 7.7% to $23.77 even after the cloud-computing company’s second-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue beat estimates. PagerDuty said it expects fiscal third-quarter revenue of between $106.5 million and $108.5 million versus analysts’ forecasts of $107.3 million. Analysts at Baird Baird downgraded the stock to Neutral from Outperform with a price target of $25, down from $32, citing billings that were below guidance.

Tesla (TSLA) unveiled a revamped Model 3 with a longer range and raised the price on the electric vehicle by about 12%. The car was unveiled In China, where the vehicle first went on sale Friday. Tesla also cut prices on its expensive Model S and Model X cars, which start at about $100,000. Shares of Tesla fell 5.1%.

Chinese electric-vehicle makers Li Auto (LI), NIO ( NIO ), and XPeng (XPEV) reported delivery numbers for August that when combined set a monthly record. U.S.-listed shares of Li Auto rose 1.6%, NIO was up 7.1%, and XPeng gained 5.2%.

Intel (INTC) was up 4.2% after CEO Pat Gelsinger said the chip maker was tracking above the midpoint of its third-quarter guidance. Gelsinger also said Intel received “a large customer prepay” for “18A” manufacturing capacity, a reference to the company’s development of 1.8 nanometer production lines, which will be used to produce cutting-edge chips. The CEO said the prepayment allowed the company to accelerate construction of a new chip fabrication facility in Arizona. 

Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) fell 7.4% after it was announced that Rosalind Brewer would be stepping down as chief executive of the retail pharmacy company. She joined Walgreens in March 2021. The company also said it expects fiscal-year adjusted earnings to be at or near the low end of its previously stated range.

Lululemon Athletica‘s (LULU) earnings in the second quarter beat analysts’ estimates and the yoga-pants maker raised fiscal-year guidance. The stock rose 6%.

Apple (AAPL) rose 0.9% after the world’s most valuable company marked its worst month since December, falling almost 5% in August. Apple also ended its longest monthly winning streak in nine years, and a seven-month winning streak, its longest since August 2014.

Market News

The unemployment rate rose sharply in August, as the summer of 2023 neared a close with a job market in slowdown mode. Nonfarm payrolls grew by a seasonally adjusted 187,000 for the month, above the Dow Jones estimate for 170,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

In the first contested presidential election in over a decade, Singaporeans chose former senior minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam as the nation’s next president – by a resounding margin. He received 1,746,427 votes, 70.4 percent of the more than 2.48 million valid votes cast on Friday (Sep 1), the Elections Department (ELD) announced at 12.22 am on Saturday.

Vinfast tumbled 15.02% on Friday and crashed 57.11% this week. While the company has plans to build a new factory in North Carolina that is due to begin production in 2025, it sold only 24,000 cars globally in 2022. It reported a loss of more than $2 billion last year on revenue of $634 million. 

While $Intel(INTC)$ CEO Pat Gelsinger's comments relating to its third-quarter guidance and a prepayment for its foundry business are "clearly a positive development," the Santa Clara, California-based chip giant is not out of the woods yet, investment firm Citi said.

An Amazon shareholder has filed a lawsuit against founder Jeff Bezos and the Amazon board alleging directors failed to fully vet a decision to award launch contracts for the company's Project Kuiper satellite project to Blue Origin, Bezos's space company.

Danish drugmaker $Novo Nordisk(NOVO)$ briefly unseated LVMH as Europe's most valuable listed company in intraday trading on Friday, ending the French luxury group's 2-1/2 year-long reign at the top.

The U.S. should allow Nvidia's artificial intelligence (AI) chips only to buyers who agree to ethically use the technology, Google DeepMind's co-founder Mustafa Suleyman told the Financial Times on Friday.

$Nikola Corporation(NKLA)$ announced the appointment of John Vesco, a seasoned multi-modal transportation expert, to its Board of Directors. With a career spanning more than three decades, Vesco's extensive executive leadership within prominent transportation and supply chain organizations, including Hub Group and Schneider, underscores his qualifications to contribute significantly to Nikola's strategic growth initiatives.