Friday was a macro day, not an earnings day.
| Close | Change | |
|---|---|---|
| Nasdaq 100 ETF | 723.03 | +1.17% |
| Russell 2000 ETF | 301.56 | +1.11% |
| S&P 500 ETF | 773.26 | +0.61% |
| Dow Jones ETF | 539.62 | +0.27% |
In dollars, per the ETFs tracking the indices.
The spread between those four lines is the whole story of the day.
Why Everything Rose, and Why Not Equally
This morning brought the US July employment report: a fall of 23,000 jobs, unemployment at 4.1%, and revisions that erased 103,000 jobs from May and June.
A labour market cooling without breaking, with wages rising just 3.2% a year, is exactly the condition that lets the Fed cut. And that is how the market priced it.
Which is why the gains were not uniform:
The Russell 2000 and the Nasdaq led - small companies and growth companies are the most rate-sensitive, because they carry more leverage and their value depends on profits far out in time. When rates fall, distant profits are worth more today.
The Dow barely moved. It is an index of older, steadier companies, less levered and less dependent on expectations.
And there is more evidence pointing the same way, from a completely different direction: gold miners. B2Gold rose 22.98%, IAMGOLD rose 14.29% and Wheaton Precious Metals rose 7.10%. Gold pays no interest, so when rates fall the cost of holding it falls too. Three entirely different assets - small caps, growth stocks and gold - moved together on the same day for the same reason.
nLIGHT: Minus 25.56%, for Exactly the Reason We Wrote About
This was the biggest fall of the day, and no surprise to anyone who read our piece yesterday.
nLIGHT reported a record quarter - revenue of $82.591 million, growth of 33.8%. Then it guided to $63 million to $73 million for the next one.
Even at the top of that range, that is a fall of roughly 12% from the quarter just reported. The reason, in the company's own words: supply chain problems pushed about $17 million of product shipments out of the quarter.
This is the pattern that ran through the whole week, in the sharpest version we have seen: the quarter is excellent, the guide is below it, and the stock is cut.
And the Second: Trade Desk, Minus 21.90%
Trade Desk fell 21.90% to $13.80. It reported after Thursday's close, so the reaction landed today.
Its growth fell from 19% in the same quarter a year ago to 3.0% this quarter. Net income fell 28.6%.
Our Pieces, and How They Closed Today
| Company | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| nLIGHT | 56.15 | -25.56% |
| Trade Desk | 13.80 | -21.90% |
| Playtika | 2.94 | -10.64% |
| MARA | 10.09 | -5.26% |
| Vistra | 140.59 | -0.56% |
| Payoneer | 7.10 | -0.14% |
| Arbe Robotics | 0.77 | +1.45% |
| Datadog | 233.93 | +2.02% |
| Nova | 393.02 | +3.07% |
| Constellation Energy | 269.89 | +3.37% |
| MicroVision | 3.39 | +3.99% |
| Cloudflare | 300.27 | +5.57% |
| D-Wave | 20.76 | +6.98% |
| JFrog | 89.52 | +7.80% |
| Rigetti | 17.94 | +8.53% |
| indie Semiconductor | 4.04 | +17.78% |
Note the spread. Same day, same market, and a range from minus 25.56% to plus 17.78%. In earnings season the index tells you very little about what is happening underneath it.
The Israeli Names
| Company | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Playtika | 2.94 | -10.64% |
| Teads | 0.69 | -0.86% |
| Payoneer | 7.10 | -0.14% |
| MIND CTI | 1.02 | 0.00% |
| Arbe Robotics | 0.77 | +1.45% |
| Nova | 393.02 | +3.07% |
| Real Brokerage | 2.14 | +7.54% |
| JFrog | 89.52 | +7.80% |
Nova recovered part of yesterday's fall, and JFrog rose 7.80% despite guiding operating income below the quarter it reported. Playtika fell for a second straight day.
Other Notable Moves
| Company | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Expensify | 2.69 | +35.86% |
| PubMatic | 17.78 | +31.90% |
| FIGS | 14.26 | +26.87% |
| Sprout Social | 10.34 | +26.25% |
| Gray Media | 5.37 | +25.47% |
| Twilio | 241.28 | +24.89% |
| B2Gold | 5.03 | +22.98% |
| Natera | 322.10 | +21.37% |
| Five9 | 33.99 | +19.81% |
| Fluor | 57.00 | +16.92% |
| IAMGOLD | 18.32 | +14.29% |
| 10x Genomics | 52.03 | +14.10% |
| Blink Charging | 0.61 | +13.33% |
| Century Aluminum | 51.23 | +11.49% |
| Instacart | 50.17 | +11.41% |
| ICU Medical | 184.56 | +10.93% |
| DraftKings | 24.03 | +8.39% |
| Lyft | 17.46 | +7.12% |
| Wheaton Precious Metals | 134.20 | +7.10% |
| Ziff Davis | 53.87 | +5.73% |
| Wendy's | 7.69 | +4.06% |
| Rocket Companies | 13.72 | +3.78% |
| Yelp | 25.56 | +2.08% |
| Texas Roadhouse | 208.00 | -0.08% |
| Aflac | 124.61 | -1.62% |
| Grindr | 16.58 | -3.32% |
| Sharon AI | 49.79 | -4.53% |
| WillScot | 24.37 | -5.62% |
| Atmus Filtration | 51.17 | -6.13% |
| Dentsply Sirona | 12.12 | -7.97% |
| Sweetgreen | 5.40 | -8.01% |
| TDS | 32.98 | -8.39% |
| Serve Robotics | 5.09 | -10.48% |
| Silvaco | 7.65 | -11.15% |
| QuidelOrtho | 12.29 | -24.69% |
Who Reported Today
Friday is a light day: 80 companies filed, against 277 on Thursday.
Among the notable ones: Dentsply Sirona, DraftKings, QIAGEN, Wendy's, Fluor, PPL, Ziff Davis, Vistra, ACM Research, Algonquin Power, B2Gold, Copa Holdings, Gray Media, IAMGOLD, Wheaton Precious Metals, Sun Life Financial, TDS, Ryman Hospitality, Essent Group, Atmus Filtration, Docebo, Starz, Sharon AI, Delek US, Hawaiian Electric, MYR Group, Plains All American, Beazer Homes, Trulieve and MDA Space.
This is a filtered list - we brought the names in the headlines or on one of the threads we follow.
Next Week
Monday, 10 August. Earnings season is thinning out, but large names remain.
הזווית שלי
דעה אישית של אילן אברמוב - לא ייעוץ ולא המלצה
This day gave me two reminders, and both are about the same thing: the difference between what happened and what will happen.
The first is the macro. A report showing job losses is, on its face, bad news. The market rose because it is not pricing July - it is pricing what the Fed does because of July. And that is exactly why the Russell rose four times as much as the Dow: whatever is most sensitive to future rates moved the most.
The second is nLIGHT. A record quarter, and minus 25.56%. The company did nothing wrong in the quarter it reported on. It simply said that next quarter it will ship less, because $17 million of shipments are stuck in the supply chain.
And that sums up the entire week in one sentence: SolarEdge, Taboola, Datadog, and now nLIGHT and Trade Desk. Five companies, five decent-to-good reports, and five sharp falls. In every one the cause was the same: the guide was weaker than the quarter.
And what I take into next week is not which stock to buy. It is where to look: when a report lands, the first thing I read is not revenue - it is the guidance. Revenue tells you what already happened. Guidance is what moves the price.
Errors or inaccuracies are possible. Spotted something that looks wrong? Write to me and I will correct it.
