TENSION BUILDS: Markets stall ahead of critical Fed signals

Added: 2026-04-30

[00:00:00]Well, the opening bell has begun and the trading has begun.

[00:00:05]Uh we are now seeing essentially what we saw in pre-market activity, which is a basically a flat market. There's so many things to wait on, not only concerning the earnings that are coming out for four of the mag seven stocks today, but also what the Fed does. It's not so much whether they're going to move market to move the rates at all. They're probably not going to touch the rates, but the guidance will be interesting to see. Could it be that the the oil price spike will spill over to some degree in the economy as a whole? Those kind of concerns investors are looking at, but until they hear details from the Fed, they're kind of holding back right now.

[00:00:42]As you can see, the S&P is down just a tick about eight points right now. The Nasdaq, if we can look to that cuz that was trading in positive territory in pre-market activity. Now that's trading down. Here's what's happening with big tech. Again, Apple will be coming out tomorrow, but the rest of those will be reporting today and they are down either a percent or slightly below 1%.

[00:01:06]Let's go to Taylor Riggs who's here talking about what we are going to be seeing. Seagate, let's start with Seagate. What do you think?

[00:01:12]>> This is unbelievable. Basically, there's insatiable demand for AI and so they jump 18% for AI data storage. Revenue's up 44% year-over-year. Free cash flow is at a decade-high and they raised their annual growth target going forward to a minimum of 20% in the next 2 years.

[00:01:31]>> So there you go. I mean, AI is at work.

[00:01:34]It is increasing productivity tremendously and profits. Now we had a ton of companies report before the bell.

[00:01:40]Let's start with Etsy. Yep, a better top and a bottom line. They had a 5 and 1/2% increase in gross merchandise sales and a sequential increase in active buyers for the first time in 2 years.

[00:01:52]>> General Dynamics.

[00:01:53]>> Also a beat on the top and the bottom line and all four business segments reported growth. Marine was up 21%.

[00:02:00]Aerospace up eight, combat up five, and other technologies up 4%.

[00:02:05]>> SoFi Tech. You know, they had a revenue beat, but the shares are down 12% because they reaffirmed and did not raise guidance. Analysts noticed some weakness as well within the technology division.

[00:02:17]>> Okay, and Yum! Brands.

[00:02:19]>> We're all going to Taco Bell and it's working. We had a beat on the top and the bottom line. Shares are up 15, sorry, revenue was up 15% year-over-year. Digital sales as well approached 11 billion dollars. A record 63% of total system sales are coming from digital. Taco Bell up 8% same-store sales, KFC up 6%. All of that outweighing Pizza Hut, which was flat and continues to be the weakness for this brand.

[00:02:45]>> going for Yum! Brands.

[00:02:47]>> [laughter] >> You know, he loves the pizza.

[00:02:50]He does. He likes the food stocks. All right, Booking Holdings is down today.

[00:02:54]What do they do and why are they down?

[00:02:56]>> So they lowered their full-year guidance to the low mid-teens from the high-teens. They are citing lagging impacts from the Middle East conflict through the end of June. All right, and Visa. Visa is saying something about spending. What is that?

[00:03:10]>> Yeah, you know, they had a second quarter top and bottom line beat.

[00:03:13]They're saying they're having the fastest revenue growth since 2022 and they raised their full-year guidance.

[00:03:18]They said resilient spending is pushing payments volume up 9%.

[00:03:23]>> 10% right now is happening. This is unbelievable. Humana, the health insurance people, just reported earnings. How did they do?

[00:03:31]So they had a top and a bottom line beat, but they disappointed because they only maintained their annual forecast and a lot of the other rivals were able to raise the forecast. So that's sort of a disappointment here. And Robinhood is down after its investment in Trump accounts.

[00:03:45]>> Yes. Okay, so look, they had a disappointing expense outlook tied to the Trump account. So they said they're going to invest a hundred million dollars specifically to build out and support the interface of the Trump accounts. They're also seeing a 47% decline in the cryptocurrency related revenue.

[00:04:01]>> That's too bad. Down almost 12%. NXP Semi is up a lot right now, 22%.

[00:04:09]>> Yep, so they had a top and a bottom line beat. Are you learning about a theme here? Everything is a top and a bottom line beat. NXP continues really strong guidance for the current quarter. Data center related revenue more than doubled this year to more than 500 million dollars.

[00:04:24]>> And Starbucks is on the rebound. Does this have to do with the CEO's turnaround plan?

[00:04:28]>> Absolutely. The CEO, Brian Niccol, who formerly was at Chipotle, came over and he is impressed so far. They said a 7% increase in same-store sales and this is a big milestone for them in a multi-year turnaround plan that they are in the middle of. Global comp sales were up 6.2%.

[00:04:47]>> So just to wrap it up, these earnings show that we are extremely, the market is extremely profitable right now. Is that Is that because they're selling more or is it because of AI and and all of the productivity improvements?

[00:04:59]>> Both. So you're getting top and bottom line beats and for many of these companies, when they're mature companies, you would think revenue would grow at like what GDP's growing at.

[00:05:06]These companies are doing more than that. They're not just posting revenue growth of 2, 3%. In many cases, it's 8, 9%. Plus, of course, they're profitable.

[00:05:14]So we all thought there'd be tariff costs or energy costs from the war and we're frankly not seeing it yet.

[00:05:20]>> So but there is a bullish trend in the markets, no doubt. Taylor Riggs, great to see you.