Q3 Earnings Season Begins On Positive Note

Pre-market earnings are flat-to-down at this hour, following another robust session Wednesday, led by an expanding AI trade and climbing gold values that have brought market indexes up double-digits from April lows. The Dow is -16 points, the S&P 500 +1 and the Nasdaq -4 points. The small-cap Russell 2000 is -2 points.

There are no Weekly Jobless Claims numbers this Thursday, now for the second week in a row. When we last saw new jobless claims for the third week in September, they had fallen precipitously from +264K two weeks prior to +218K, for a -46K drop — roughly the size of a large corporation. Continuing Claims had found a new equilibrium at around 1.93 million, below the 13-week range between 1.94-1.975 million.

Retail Data Suggests Pause Prior to the Holidays

We did see the release of CNBC’s NRF Retail Monitor report for September this morning, with results swinging to a negative. Retail & Restaurants (ex-autos and gas) slipped to -0.7% last month, following +0.5% the prior month. Core Retail (ex-restaurants, autos & gas) came in at -0.5% from +0.3% in August.

There is clear seasonality to this data, and positioned as September is between “back to school” and the holidays, a drop in retail purchases is a signal the consumer is saving their pennies ahead of holiday spending. Year over year, while coming down to +5.4% on headline and +5.7% on core — significantly below the +6.8% and +6.7%, respectively, from a month ago — we’re still at reasonably healthy spending levels.

Q3 Earnings Season Kicks Off: Delta, Pepsi, Tilray

Ahead of today’s opening bell, Delta Air Lines (DAL), now functioning as Alcoa (AA) did in years past as the opening salvo for a new earnings season, outperformed expectations in Q3. Earnings of $1.71 per share easily surpassed the $1.52 analysts were projecting, on $16.67 billion in revenues which outpaced the Zacks consensus by +5.61%, and above the $15.68 billion reported in the year-ago quarter.

Despite what we saw in the September NRF Retail Monitor, discretionary spending in Q3 performed quite well in Delta’s case. The major airline also ratcheted up earnings guidance for Q4, to a range of $1.60-1.90 per share from $1.59 in the Zacks consensus. Shares are up +8% in today’s pre-market on the news.

Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated PepsiCo (PEP) also beat estimates in Q3 this morning, albeit by slimmer margins. Earnings of $2.29 per share came in 2 cents higher than consensus (and 2 cents lower than the $2.31 per share reported a year ago). It’s the third earnings beat in the past four quarters. Revenues of $23.94 billion outperformed expectations by +0.25%. Shares are up modestly in early trading, still down -8% year to date.

Canadian cannabis supplier Tilray (TLRY) also surpassed estimates in its fiscal Q1 earnings report this morning, with a bottom line in the quarter of $0.00 per share from expectations of -$0.03. Revenues of $210 million in the quarter improved over the $206.8 million anticipated. Non-medical (adult use) cannabis revenues increased +12% year over year. Shares are blooming +18% in pre-market activity.

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

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