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Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Market indexes fought back and closed in the green for today’s trading session — all but the small-cap Russell 2000, which also improved but didn’t quite make it into positive territory. The S&P 500 set its second-straight record closing high, at 6144, but ultimately today’s gains were modest.
The Dow closed up +71 points, or +0.16% on the day. The S&P 500 grew +14 points, +0.24%. The Nasdaq added almost +15 points, +0.075%, while the Russell 2000 was -7.9 points for the session, -0.34%. Bond yields once again appear range-bound, with the 10-year around +4.53% and the 2-year +4.27%.
Fed Minutes Offer No Surprises
As we’d expected, the minutes of the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting from last month was a firm attitude that inflation metrics will have to once again start coming down before new rate cuts will be considered. The unanimous decision to keep the Fed funds rate between a range of +4.25-4.50%. The FOMC had cut three times in a row between September and December of last year, taking the rate down 100 basis points (bps) in the process. The next Fed meeting concludes a month from today.
Q4 Earnings Roundup: CVNA, TOST, KVYO
Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy)-rated Carvana CVNA far outpaced expectations on both top and bottom lines in its Q4 report out after today’s closing bell, with earnings more than doubling estimates to 56 cents per share from 24 cents in the Zacks consensus (and in a completely new orbit from the -$1.00 loss per share in the year-ago quarter). Revenues came in at $3.55 billion, well beyond the $3.33 billion anticipated.
This all said, it appears we have a “sell the news” situation: shares are trading -10% in the after-market, shaving off a good portion of the +328% gains the stock has made year to date, and +440% over the past year. Carvana revenues actually came down quarter over quarter, but had adjusted EBITDA margin growth of +10.1%.
Check out the updated Zacks Earnings Calendar here.
A day after a report that point-of-sale service provider Toast TOST won a 500-restaurant deal with Huddle House and Perkins parent Ascent Hospitality, Q4 earnings came in slightly mixed this afternoon: earnings of $0.05 per share missed estimates by a penny, on quarterly sales of $1.34 billion, which outperformed the $1.31 billion in the Zacks consensus. Shares had initially zoomed up +10% on the news, but have now come back down near today’s closing level.
Marketing automation platform Klaviyo KVYO is one company whose shares went up on its Q4 report after today’s close and stayed there: +7% as of now. This adds to the nearly +14% the stock has gained year to date. Earnings beat by a penny to 7 cents per share, and sales in the quarter strongly outpaced expectations, to $270 million from $257.3 million projected. Big upward moves in revenue guidance for both next quarter and the full fiscal year are helping keep interest in the shares very healthy.
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