Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce continue to move the stock market. Not only did Signet Jewelers continue to rise in the afterglow of their engagement announcement, but American Eagle popped after revealing a collaboration with the Chiefs tight end’s Tru Kolors brand, which will include vintage-inspired tees and other streetwear for a limited time. The S&P 500 finished with a record close on Wednesday, up 0.2%. The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.2% and the Russell 2000 outperformed with a 0.6% advance. Energy was the best-performing S&P 500 sector ETF, up more than 1%, while healthcare and industrials were the only (very modest) groups to finish in the red. |
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Nvidia’s second-quarter results are out, and it was a top- and bottom-line beat, with revenue of $46.74 billion surpassing expectations of $46.23 billion. However, the sales beat is not due to any positive surprise in its all-important data center business, the one responsible for the overwhelming majority of that revenue and which modestly missed expectations. The knee-jerk reaction: the stock is sliding, down 4% immediately afterward. |
- So, if not data centers, where’s the sales growth? Video games, of course! Nvidia’s gaming division, its golden goose long before generating images of celebrities eating spaghetti was even a thought, scored $4.29 billion in revenue in the second quarter, up 49% year over year — a record.
- Nvidia made over $26 billion in net income in its second quarter, putting it third among S&P 500 companies. Heck, if you zeroed in on just its de facto “asset management” arm — which is included under “net other income” — that division would be one of the 50 most profitable companies in the S&P 500.
- Nvidia, the asset manager, had a massive Q2 thanks to CoreWeave’s rally. According to CFO commentary, “Net other income for the second quarter was $2.2 billion, primarily driven by gains in a publicly-held equity security,” which certainly refers to CoreWeave, the AI darling that offers access to Nvidia’s GPUs, rose 175% during Nvidia’s fiscal Q2, and which Nvidia owns a stake in.
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It May Not Be Trading on the Nasdaq, But You Can Still Buy This Unlisted Stock |
Over 10,000 people have already invested in Pacaso. The same firm that has backed large-cap S&P 500 companies has invested too. And now everyday investors like you have the chance to invest before the opportunity ends on Sept. 18. Created by a former Zillow exec who sold his first venture for $120M, Pacaso brings co-ownership to the $1.3T vacation home industry.1 They’ve generated $1B+ worth of gross real estate transactions and service fees since inception across 2,000+ owners. That’s good for more than $100M in gross profit since 2021, including 41% YoY growth last year alone.2 They’ve even reserved their Nasdaq ticker.3 But time’s running out and the investment opportunity closes on 9/18.4 Become a Pacaso shareholder before this offering ends. |
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Because of the cardboard box’s ubiquity in shipping, the humble brown box often serves as something of a bellwether for large swaths of the US economy. And the writing on the tape ain’t great: cardboard box makers in the US have announced plans to shutter, in aggregate, about 9% of their production capacity this year. “The industry has not made such dramatic capacity moves since the GFC,” wrote analysts at Citi, using the shorthand for the global financial crisis of 2008 that set off a sharp recession. “We count seven mill closure announcements in total this year.” Here’s a timeline of those closures. The capacity reductions offer a glimpse how tariffs continue to ripple through the US economy, even in industries — such as corrugated containers — that face little foreign competition. While you might think that’s because of a slowdown in consumer spending and therefore fewer of those Amazon Prime boxes being delivered to doors, that’s not the whole story. The bigger issue is that a whole lot more boxes than you might expect are used to send US exports abroad. That’s the “biggest risk” for the industry, per Barclays analysts. |
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Even though the cardboard industry is hurting, there’s a potentially interesting opportunity for investors within the broken-down pile of paper: Wall Street analysts following box makers suggest that the sharp cuts to the industry’s US capacity could push the utilization rate, which measures how much a factory produces compared to its max potential output, back to the low 90% area from the 87.5% it’s at now. Higher utilization can produce bigger profits, which could be a good thing for certain company’s stocks. |
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