The stock market jumped on Thursday, reaching its highest closing levels since August 2022. Investors still await updates to the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations.
Overall, S&P 500 grew 0.9% to 4,198, while NASDAQ increased 1.5% to 12,689.
Tweet of the Day
"We're Going Up": Steve Cohen Turns "Pretty Bullish" As 300 Million AI-Driven Layoffs Send Profit Margins Soaring https://t.co/b2j7PYGyMr
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 17, 2023
Chart of the Day
Here is the ten-year chart of Waste Management (WM) as of May 3, 2023, when the stock was at $167.
Waste Management is North America’s leading provider of comprehensive waste management, providing services throughout the United States and Canada . The company is the biggest recycler and biggest landfill company in North America.
Waste Management grew its collection & disposal business a respectable 7% last qtr. However, higher wages and subcontractor costs caused profits to be up just 2%. The company also had bigger bills for repair and maintenance. In the year-ago period, profit growth was 22%, so the company did have tough comparisons to the year-ago period.
WM had West Coast weather disruptions, and management was pleased with last quarter’s results. The company is doing a good job increasing prices to recover cost increases. It also did a bunch of acquisitions in the 2nd half of 2022, and there are now integration costs that are temporarily hurting profits margins.
WM is part of the Conservative Growth Portfolio. It’s a buy-and-hold Blue Chip stock.