December Retail Sales Came in Flat

Pre-market indexes are pulling back slightly this morning, following another record close from the blue-chip Dow on Monday. Spirits are generally higher than they were trying to scale the “wall of worry” about AI spending over the past week or two.

Overall, call morning trading flat this morning: the Dow is -30 points at this hour, -0.06%, the S&P 500 is -1 point, the Nasdaq +8 points, +0.035% and the small-cap Russell 2000 -2, -0.07%. Bond yields remain tame: +4.16% on the 10-year, +3.46% on the 2-year.

Economic Reports This Morning: Retail Sales, Imports/Exports

The delayed (government shutdown) report on Retail Sales for December came in surprisingly light ahead of today’s open, registering 0.0% on both headline and minus big-ticket auto sales, cooling off notably from +0.6% and +0.5%, respectively, for November. Furniture, clothes and appliances all fell month over month. A print which informs GDP — ex-food service, autos, building materials and gasoline — reached -0.1% for the month, the first negative read in three months.

Import Prices were also delayed due to the government shutdown, and reflect December performance after no data for two months. Imports climbed slightly to +0.1% from 0.0% expected, and rose to +0.2% subtracting fuel prices. Food, feed and beverage prices came up +0.5% for the month, while fuels and lubricants dropped -1.5% on a -4.9% slide in petroleum prices.

Exports, also delayed and for December, came up to +0.3%. This is the highest print since July (although there were no results for October or November), and +3.1% year over year. Tariff implications are in play somewhat in these numbers, but these levels do not look unreasonable at first glance.

Q4 Earnings This Morning: KO, SPOT & More

Coca-Cola (KO) beat Q4 earnings estimates by a penny this morning to 58 cents per share, on revenues of $11.82 billion in the quarter which came -1.95% below expectations, but up from the $11.54 billion reported in the year-ago quarter. Shares had been up +11.5% year to date, but are down -3.75% in today’s pre-market.

Spotify (SPOT) posted big beats on both top and bottom lines this morning, with earnings of $5.16 per share outpacing the Zacks consensus by 2 DOLLARS per share, or a +63.3% earnings surprise. Revenues of $5.27 billion surpassed expectations by +2.57%. Pre-market trading is bringing shares up +13.5%, though still have a ways to make up year-to-date losses.

Toymaker Hasbro (HAS) also posted a stellar earnings beat this morning, with earnings of $1.51 per share well outperforming the $0.99 analysts were expecting, for a +52.5% positive surprise. Revenues of $1.45 billion beat estimates by +12.25% — largely on +4671% growth in Hasbro Entertainment (Peppa Pig, Transformers, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit). Shares are up +18% year to date and another +1.9% this morning.

Harley Davidson (HOG), on the other hand, posted a very disappointing quarter, with negative earnings of -$2.44 per share well below the -$0.92 in the Zacks consensus, for a -165% negative earnings surprise. Revenues of $390.55 million missed estimates by -25.9%, and shares are selling off -10% in today’s early trading.

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

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