The stock market rose on Monday as investors prepared for an earnings-packed week. The Federal Reserve’s rate policy decision is also expected on Wednesday after latest data indicated cooling inflation and robust economy. Furthermore, on Friday, the US jobs report for December will be out.
Overall, S&P 500 was up 0.8% to 4,928, while NASDAQ increased 1.1% to 15,628.
Tweet of the Day
The fastest growing software category in the public markets is security. Data follows.
Security companies as a group average 29% expected revenue growth in 2024, compared to 23% for Data (or DaaS which stands for data-as-a-service). Fintech & SaaS (horizontal) average ten… pic.twitter.com/rrHZUGkoJB
— Tomasz Tunguz (@ttunguz) January 29, 2024
Chart of the Day
Here is the one-year chart of Dollar General (DG) as of December 27, 2023, when the stock was at $134.
Dollar General continues to face significant headwinds from shoplifting. Profits fell a whopping 46% last quarter. Revenue increased by 2% as same-store sales declined by 1%. Customers express financial pressure, impacting their spending behavior. To try and improve results, Dollar General is shifting focus from district managers to store managers. Plans also include optimizing warehouses by eliminating some products, thinking that will help reduce shoplifting. Management thinks shrink improvement will take a total of one year to fix. So far, they have recorded two quarters of high theft.
DG is on the radar of our Conservative Growth Portfolio.
