TL;DR
- EV sales are up, but not all earnings are
- Companies from Alphabet to Gap got a leadership shakeup
- Many of changes for investors to keep eyes on are happening in tech
- Top weekly and monthly trades
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Major events that could affect your portfolio
As companies continue to report earnings, we’re seeing some slow growth for electric cars, despite companies’ increasing sales of their electric vehicles. For one, Volkswagen’s EV model sales were up 52% compared to last year, with the ID.4 remaining the bestseller. Global car sales for the second quarter came in at 1.2 million, up 13% from this time last year. And, for the first half of the year, sales volume was at 2.22 million, up 7.2% year over year. It sold 94,800 EV cars alone.
Nonetheless, the carmaker missed expectations on profit for the quarter. Post-tax profit was down compared to Q2 last year, and its $700 million partnership announcement with Chinese EV maker XPeng failed to raise the company’s share price.
Meanwhile, GM’s second-quarter earnings beat expectations with increased EPS and sales—but EV deliveries were down to 15,354 for the second quarter from 20,670 in Q1. Earnings per share came in at $1.91 and operating income was at $3.2 billion from sales of $44.7 billion—while analysts had only anticipated $1.87 a share and $3.2 billion in sales from $42.1 billion.
Ford also posted profits that beat Wall Street expectations, earning 72 cents per share in Q2, compared to an expected 55 cents a share and up from 68 cents. That said, the car manufacturer’s losses before interest and taxes (EBIT) climbed to $1.1 billion from its EV business, up from $722 million in Q1. It also pushed back expectations for the production of EVs at a 600,000 annual pace to 2024 instead of 2023, noting the pricing environment for EVs.
Investors interested in the clean tech space would be wise to diversify with technologies outside of EVs. Keeping eyes on how companies are positioning themselves for the next quarter is also key in understanding how EV production might shake up earnings.
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Big brands are swapping C-suite exec positions left and right. Alphabet CFO, Ruth Porat, for example, is moving to a joint president and chief investment officer position in the company. She’ll be responsible for Alphabet’s speculative portfolio. The announcement was made on the company’s Q2 earnings call, which reported a better-than-expected performance across the board. Shares swung positively following the news.
Meanwhile, Gap just hired Mattel’s COO and president, Richard Dickson, as its next CEO—after a year-long vacancy. Though Dickson has spent the bulk of his career with the toy company responsible for the big-hit Barbie movie that broke the internet this week, he also has retail experience at Bloomingdale’s and Nine West.
What’s the takeaway? Clean tech, tech and retail alike are seeing big changes, which could mean plenty of big opportunities for investors in the foreseeable future.
This week’s top theme from Q.ai
There’s been a whole lot of tech talk in recent weeks, and not much has changed there. This week, we’ve witnessed a lot of tech platforms that peaked in recent weeks unveil updates and changes to revive momentum.
For example, Meta’s Thread seemed to have been slowing down, but Mark Zuckerberg introduced some new updates to the app that could bring it back to the forefront of social media users’ minds. After all, the change comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that the number of daily active users on the platform dropped by 70% from its July 7th high.
Meanwhile, the ChatGPT app just launched on Android, not long after the iOS app became available. OpenAI had opened pre-registrations for Android users just about two months ago and was quick to release the app. Time will tell whether or not the generative AI tool gets a boost, the website saw its traffic fall for the first time last month.
Spotify was also in the news this week after hiking the price of its premium subscription plans by as much as 20%. More specifically, premium plans could go up by as much as $2 a month. The news comes after the streaming service reported losses in the second quarter.
“As we continue to grow our platform, we are updating our Premium prices so that we can keep innovating in changing market conditions,” the company said in a blog post.
All that is to say, there’s a lot going on in tech right now, and Q.ai’s Emerging Tech Kit gives investors the opportunity to gain exposure to all of it. With the help of AI, the Kit rebalances every week based on the latest predictions, making sure you’re always on top of the latest information.
Top trade ideas
Here are some of the best ideas our AI systems are recommending for the next week and month.
Euronet Worldwide Inc. (EEFT) – The global electronic payment services company is our Top Buy for next week with our AI giving them an A and B rating in our Quality Value and Growth factors, respectively.
Inspire Medical System (INSP) – The medical innovation company that makes devices for obstructive sleep apnea is our Top Short for next week with our AI giving it an F rating in Quality Value.
Target Hospitality Corp (TH) – Target Hospitality Corp provides workforce lodging and other temporary, modular housing for oil and gas operations, government agencies, disaster relief efforts and more. They’re a Top Buy for next month with an A rating in our AI’s Technical, Growth and Quality Value factors.
Community Health Systems Inc (CYH) – Community Health Systems develops and operates healthcare delivery systems. They’re a Top Short for next month with our AI giving them an F rating in our Technical and Growth factors.
Our AI’s Top ETF trades for the next month are to invest in small cap Brazilian stocks and crude oil and to short U.S. small-caps companies. Top Buys are the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX), iShares MSCI Brazil Small Cap ETF (EWZS) and ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF (UCO). Top Shorts are Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index Fund ETF (BSV) and Vanguard S&P Small-Cap 600 Index Fund ETF (VIOO).
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