Elon Musk, AI and start of earnings season will jolt markets
Tesla will unveil its Robotaxi concept on Thursday. Stocks are struggling for momentum as earnings season begins.
Elon Musk attracts tons of attention. The CEO of Tesla (TSLA) has emerged as a hyperactive entrepreneur with a reputation built on the success of the electric car company he built, Space X and other ventures.
This week, Musk and Tesla will likely be a degree of interest. On Thursday, Musk and Tesla will unveil the plans for the logo new Robotaxi at the Warner Bros. studio in Los Angeles.
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It be miles a key event for Musk and the company which has had its struggles. The shares fell forty four% between the tip of 2023 and April 22 on worries about sales stagnating. Since April 22, the shares are up 76% and truly up zero.Sixty four% for 2024.
The Tesla event is just thought about one of a busy week of corporate events, investor meetings, economic reports and the unofficial start for the 1/3-quarter earnings season.
Jobs report cheers investors
Stocks ended the past week with small gains, thanks mostly to investors cheering an awfully bullish jobs report from the Labor Department on Friday.
The S&P Five hundred ended the week up zero.2%. The Nasdaq Composite Index added zero.1%, and the Dow Jones Industrials found its owing to a zero.1%.
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Three issues perceived to weigh on stocks:
- Worries on whether the growing violence in the Middle East will erupt erupt in a huge war. Oil prices jumped 9% on the week. Retail gas prices continued to maneuver lower.
- A surprising rise in interest rates after the Federal Reserve's Sept. 18 decision to cut its key rate of interest by a 1/2-percentage point.
- The growing national tensions over the Presidential election.
Tesla's event is necessary, especially for Tesla
Tesla shares, despite their huge gain since April — including a 22% gain in September — alternatively ended the week down about four%.
The September gains reflected more self assurance Tesla had regained its mojo earlier than the Robocar presentation .
Elon Musk has been pushing for the Robotaxi idea for months, arguing the premise would revolutionize transportation, particularly in urban areas.
It should well boost Musk's contention that Tesla is an synthetic intelligence company. Many analysts shakes their heads at the premise, saying Tesla is a car company.
More Tesla:
- Analysts praise groundbreaking Tesla rival, preview robotaxi event
- Thought about one of Tesla's big, cool ideas may at last come to reality
- Goldman Sachs analyst revisits Tesla stock price target earlier than key events
Its Robotaxi (and cars and Cybertrucks, for that matter) are in general the physical manifestation of a limiteless network that grabs data from every Tesla vehicle and uses it to present information to drivers on the safest and best routes to a destinations.
The chance Musk faces this week is that he proves unable to convince customers, Tesla fans and investors the vehicle will work, despite the proven fact that Waymo's taxi seems to work in San Francisco.
Many small print are unclear, such as:
- When a production model will likely be reachable.
- Who would perchance would want to operate a Robotaxi. Uber, perchance, owners of the vehicles or even Tesla itself.
- How a rollout would perchance work.
Tesla is now not pioneering robotaxies. Waymo, owned by Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL) , has been offering service in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, Ariz.
There have been system faults and accidents. In May 2023, a Waymo vehicle in self sufficient mode in San Francisco killed a dog, consistent with a Guardian report. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
AMD has a huge day on Thursday, too
Semiconductor maker Progressed Micro Devices AMD is holding its Advancing AI event to exhibit products such as its AMD Instinct accelerators and EPYC server processors.
Barrons noted the presentation also will provide networking and updates on its AI laptop computer push.
AMD shares are up about Sixteen% in 2024 (when compared with the Nasdaq's 20.8% gain) but is waging a scrappy fight to get recognition and customers.
Earnings season takes off this week
If it looks just like the 2d-quarter earnings season is taking forever, the 1/3-quarter reports will start to return out in a huge way.
Beverage-and-snack giant Pepsico (PEP) reports its results Tuesday morning. The street estimate is $2.30 a share, down from $2.35 a year ago.
Things get more exciting Thursday when India-based software giant Infosys (INFY) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Domino's Pizza (DPZ) report.
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Friday is the special day when a bunch of financial giants report, including JP Morgan Chase (JPM) , Wells Fargo (WFC) , insurer Progressive Corp. (PGR) , money manager BlackRock (BLK) and Bank of New York Mellon BNY come out with results.
Put attentiveness to the discussions the companies offer on how they view the U.S. economy. Friday's jobs report, showing non-farm payrolls growing by 254,000 in September, became so much more bullish than expected.
The revisions in the October jobs report will tell us more.
The industrial reports and Fed talks
The week ahead offers some economic reports which may without problems move markets:
Consumer Price Index for September, due Thursday. Along with core CPI. The consensus estimate is that the index will likely be up 2.Three% from a year ago. It be close enough to keep up the Fed happy.
Producer Price Index for September, due Friday. This gauge of inflationary pressures faced by businesses is additionally projected to expose tamer inflation.
Consumer sentiment. The University of Michigan, preliminary October consumer sentiment index, due Friday. This helps gauge if consumers are confident about the arrival months.
Fed speakers. All week. Everyone except for Fed Chair Jerome Powell will speak somewhere next week. The remarks of Fed governors are posted on the Federal Reserve web site. Presidents of the 12 Federal Reserve banks post their texts on their banks' web sites. Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, led to stocks to fall sharply last spring when he suggested may must be boosted owing to sticky inflation.
Fed minutes. Due Wednesday and can well be found here. It be a summary of September meeting that resulted in the Fed's rate cut decision. The outline of the discussion is often toward the tip of minutes.
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