HAPPY THURSDAY TO THE STREET
CEO Jamie Dimon still won't say when he's leaving. But JPMorgan (JPM) just tipped its hand by naming investment-bank co-heads Doug Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh as co-presidents, shortly after longtime contender Marianne Lake bowed out.
The 70-year-old says he wants at least five more years. Translation: the succession drama has only just premiered.
🟨 | US stocks were bifurcated today as ongoing tech volatility dragged down the Nasdaq Composite, while the 30-stock Dow reached a record close.
📈 | One Notable Gainer: BlackBerry (BB) rallied after its fiscal Q1 results beat expectations.
📉 | One Notable Decliner: Apple (AAPL) slid after announcing steep price hikes on MacBooks and iPads, citing rising memory costs.
— Brooks & Cas
MARKET SNAPSHOT
S&P 500 Heatmap. Credit: Unusual Whales
HOW HIGH WILL INFLATION GET THIS YEAR?
Inflation just hit a three-year high, with the war in Iran footing the bill.
But it wasn’t all energy prices driving the gain. Core PCE, which excludes food and energy inflation and is considered the Federal Reserve’s preferred metric, ran at 3.4% in May, the hottest since 2023
With new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh talking tough, traders are now bracing for a September hike. But the biggest question left is just how high this thing climbs.
Market Movers
MICRON, WENDY'S, QUALCOMM
📈 | Micron (MU) bounced back in a big way after Q3 earnings blew past estimates on quadrupled revenue.
📉 | Wendy's (WEN) fell sharply as retail-trader momentum faded.
📈 | Qualcomm (QCOM) gained after nearly doubling its 2029 non-handset revenue forecast to $40B.
📉 | Hertz Global (HTZ) dropped after pricing a 37M-share secondary offering.
Tomorrow's Trade Idea, Today
GROUNDS FOR OPTIMISM
Stock Spotlight
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Caffeine Kick
Barclays is giving Keurig Dr Pepper a morning jolt.
Analyst Lauren Lieberman upgraded the stock to Overweight, betting the beverage giant can finally pull off the coffee spinoff that has spooked investors for months.
Splitting The Bill
The company plans to split off into two businesses by early 2027: one for beverages, one for coffee. According to Lieberman, the path to the breakup no longer looks treacherous.
The analyst was always sold on the logic of separating the assets, but what worried her was execution. Nine months on, she says the company has knocked down the big concerns, locking in private credit financing and clarifying the separation mechanics.
That de-risking, plus improved leverage, is what changed her mind.
A House Divided
Wall Street isn't fully caffeinated yet. Of the 18 analysts covering the stock, nine rate it Buy or Strong Buy and nine sit on Hold.
Shares are in the red over the past year, weighed down by spinoff doubts. Barclays is betting the skeptics come around once the coffee actually starts pouring.
Do you own any shares of Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP)?
OVERHEARD ON THE STREET
📊 The US economy grew at a 2.1% annual pace in Q1, an upgrade from the prior 1.6% estimate.
⚖️ The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 for Bayer (BAYRY), finding it can't be sued under state law for failing to warn that Roundup causes cancer when the EPA never required a warning label.
🎮 Microsoft (MSFT) will raise Xbox console prices by $100 to $150 starting Aug 1 as memory costs soar.
🗑️ A roster of former JPMorgan employees went viral, from a worker filmed stealing a Knicks-themed trash can to a banker awarded $4.25M in the "salami incident."
WEDNESDAY'S POLL RESULTS
Do you own any shares of Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO)?
▇▇▇▇▇▇ 🐂 Yup, I'm holding
▇▇▇▇▇▇ 🐻 Nope, not interested
▇▇▇▇▇▇ 👀 No, but I'm interested
And, in response, you said:
🐻 Nope, not interested — “Video game budgets now routinely exceed even the largest movie budgets. Investing in a company that makes products that command that kind of expenditure is too risky for me.”
🐻 Nope, not interested — “Sorry, but I will not even take ONE.”
