Fast Money Blog- 11/3/23
This was another big week on Wall Street for data and earnings.
On Wednesday, Nov. 1st, the Federal Reserve met and left interest rates unchanged for a second consecutive time. This keeps the fed fund’s rate at a range of 5.25% to 5.5%.
While still acknowledging their goal of bringing inflation down to 2%, the Fed did upgrade the committee’s general assessment of the economy.
On Tuesday, October 31st, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) released their earnings report.
AMD announced top-line revenue for Q3 2023 of $5.8 billion, up 4% year-over-year.
Data Center segment revenue was $1.6 billion, relatively flat year-over-year.
Client segment (which includes PC chips) revenue was $1.5 billion, up 42% year-over-year. This was driven primarily by higher Ryzen mobile processor sales.
On Thursday, Nov. 2nd, Apple, Inc. (AAPL) released its Q4 2023 earnings with quarterly revenue of $89.5 billion, down 1% year-over-year. Despite the sales dip, Apple’s net income from the quarter grew nearly 11% year-over-year to $22.96 billion.
The company reported $383.29 billion in sales for the full fiscal year, down about 3% from the prior year.
Revenue from Apple’s products segment dipped more than 5% year-over-year during the September quarter, driven in particular by declines in Mac and iPad sales.
Mac sales were down 34% in the quarter year-over-year.
Revenue from iPads was also down, falling 10% from the same period last year.
iPhone revenue, however, ticked up by 3% from the year-ago quarter to $43.8 billion, marking a September quarter iPhone sales record.
Once again, the bright spot for Apple was that they reached an all-time revenue record in their Services segment which took in $22.3 billion, up more than 16% year-over-year. This segment includes Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Fitness, Apple Cloud and the Apple App Store, just to name a few.
Recent earnings seem to suggest the period of Apple innovation has slowed to a crawl. Let’s not forget that it’s been 11 years since Apple visionary and co-founder Steve Jobs passed away. As this earnings report suggests, Apple is making most of its revenue through price increases, not product innovation.
Nevertheless, I still recommend both AMD and AAPL as short-term trades and long-term holds.
Stay patient, stay disciplined.
Tyrone Jackson
The Wealthy Investor