The big story on the stock market is how inflation seems to be filling rapidly, suggesting the Fed will only raise rates by 0.25% once or twice before taking a wait-and-see approach.
Inflation could be headed to an annualized rate of 4% or less by this Summer.
Overall, S&P 500 increased 0.7% to 3,919, while NASDAQ grew 1.0% to 10,743.
Tweet of the Day
Can headline inflation drop to ZERO? It’s “a seriously tall order,” but “we can see a path to 2% core #CPI inflation by mid-year, and perhaps just 1 1/2% by the end of the year — far lower than implied by the FOMC’s latest forecasts.”@PantheonMacro pic.twitter.com/ZeZEKmIBl1
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) January 9, 2023
Chart of the Day
Our chart of the day is the one-year chart of Five Below (FIVE) as of December 21, 2022, when the stock was at $172.
Five Below, is a dollar-store concept for kids and teens, that sells merchandise such as toys, games, party items, sports gear, clothes, candy & electronics for between $1 and $5.55 each. This company has the fastest dollar-store concept of all the dollar stores (including Dollar Tree and Dollar General).
Results were not up to par the last few qtrs due to strong results a year ago.
For instance, sales increased just 6% last qtr, but they jumped 28% in the same period last year.
Notice in this one-year chart, profit growth is expected to climb 22% next qtr. That’s Five Below getting back to its old ways – growing profits 20%-plus.
Investors realize this and pushed the shares to a 52-week high today.
FIVE is part of the Growth Portfolio.
