Did Friday’s selloff catch you off guard? The S&P 500 shed over 1% at one point, as investors book profits and pare down risk ahead of the weekend in the stock market today.
The coronavirus continues to drive the narrative. While the World Health Organization said on Thursday that the virus strain not yet demanding of international emergency, traders and investors are unsure how to process the situation.
For many observers though, it’s simply an opportunity to sell off. Meaning that, the market has been too hot and any excuse to pullback a bit is in play. Stocks have been on a steady ascent, and at this point, even an 8% to 10% correction from the highs would still leave the technicals in pretty good shape.
The coronavirus has a few memory sensors tingling back to late-Q3 early-Q4 2014, when the Ebola scare sent the market lower by almost 10%. And remember, that was mainly out of Africa. There are a lot more people in China doing a lot more traveling and working in a much larger economy.
So if the headlines continue to worsen, perhaps we’ll continue to see some air leave the market.
Movers in the Stock Market Today
Boeing (NYSE:BA) was one of the wildest movers today. Shares sank on reports that the company is mulling a production cut for its 787 Dreamliner jet. So how did the stock surge from the lows and end higher by 1.7%?
Reports from the FAA now suggest that the 737 MAX may be reinstated before mid-year. Earlier this week, BA shares sold off on reports of a software issue and a possible delay of the 737 MAX until June or July. Friday’s news also sent Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) from negative to positive territory, and helped alleviate some of the losses in American Airlines (NYSE:AAL) and United Airlines (NYSE:UAL).
Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) initially jumped over 3% to new 52-week highs, although most of those gains evaporated on the back of market-wide selling. In any regard, shares were on the rise after the company agreed to two multi-year deals to supply wireless components to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). The agreement could be worth up to $15 billion in revenue for AVGO.
Apple
Speaking of Apple, the company has reportedly garnered more than 33 million U.S. subscribers for its Apple TV+ service. That’s behind Netflix’s (NASDAQ:NFLX) 61.3 million subscribers and Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) 42.2 million Prime Video subs, but ahead of Disney’s (NYSE:DIS) Disney+ subscribers of 23.2 million.
Honestly though, the figures for both Disney+ and Apple TV+ are impressive given that both platforms just launched a few months ago. It may make competition even harder for Comcast’s (NASDAQ:CMCSA) coming Peacock service.
Lastly for Apple, the stock received yet another price target hike from Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. Ives has been bullish on Apple for a while now, but took his price target from $350 to $400 on more 5G optimism.
That wasn’t the only call regarding Apple and 5G, although the sentiment is not shared. Rosenblatt analysts argued that “the market has become too enthusiastic about the upcoming 5G cycle. We expect the cycle to be similar to a regular smartphone upgrade cycle (or even slower than a regular upgrade cycle) due to consumers waiting for 5G networks to get better and 5G phone prices to drop.”
While the analyst raised their price target by $100, it was only up from $150 to $250, which doesn’t exactly come across as bullish as Apple recently hit a high of $323.
Heard on the Street
Disney Shanghai will be closed on Saturday, as to not aid in the spread of the coronavirus. That’s even as the Chinese New Year gets underway. That didn’t stop Morgan Stanley analysts from feeling bullish on the stock though. They upped their price target to $170.
That’s also despite the breakdown on the chart.
Keybanc analysts are feeling bullish on big tech. In particular, they like Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL), raising their price target to $263 and $1,749, respectively. Higher valuations, strong growth and free cash flow should drive the stocks higher, they say.
Finally, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) stock tacked on 8.1% after better-than-expected fourth-quarter results. In fact, INTC smoked earnings and revenue estimates and provided robust guidance.
However, that didn’t stop Loop Capital from downgrading the stock from “hold” to “sell.” Although they did raise their price target from $50 to $59.
Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell is long AVGO, AMZN, AAPL and DIS.