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Stocks Give Up Early Gains As Inflation Rises 8.5%

Today in the stock market, stocks gave up early gains as inflation hit a 40-year high of 8.5%. Overall, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ were both down less than 1%.

Shares of Upstart (UPST) were down 6% to $84 on the day. Upstart offers a cloud based software package that allows banks to process and (perhaps) approve loans, then keep them or sell them.

Elsewhere, shares of Shopify (SHOP) dropped 4% on the day to close at $494. Yesterday, management announced a 10-for-1 stock split.

Shopify is expected to have profits decline this year as it spends to grow. The company is expected to have higher sales and marketing expenses in 2022 as well as $200 million in capital spending. Shopify is building out its U.S. fulfillment infrastructure to warehouse and ship products for merchants on its platform. But that number seems so low considering Amazon is spending tens-of-billions to compete.

Cybersecurity Stocks Shine

Shares of Crowdstrike (CRWD) tried to break out of a 4-month high, but the breakout failed as the market declined. Shares of CRWD rose 4% to close at $225 on the day after an analyst upgrade.

CrowdStrike is crowd-sourced security, that’s learning from other cyber attacks. The company has a threat intel platform that is spying on customer traffic. When one customer gets hit by an attempted cyber attack, CrowdStrike sees this 1st attack and can strike the threat for all its customers. CrowdStrike is about endpoint protection for PCs, laptops, iPads and mobile phones. This is protecting the hardware at the end of the internet, like Norton made famous with PC protection.

Shares of Cloudflare (NET) were up 4% to $114. Cloudflare utilizes edge computing, which entails placing edge servers all-around the world, with each close to the user. The company also works with cybersecurity.

Chart of the Day

Our chart of the day is this one-year chart of Lululemon (LULU). LULU tried to break out to a four month high, but the breakout failed. LULU closed at $376, up 2% on the day.

Last month, LULU popped after the company reported earnings. Notice the stock has built a cup and is now forming a small handle. The stock might break out of a powerful cup-and-handle chart formation.

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