The stock market rose on Monday, with the S&P 500 hitting another record closing high as investors are bullish on the health of the US economy.
Several economic reports are expected to be out this week, including fourth quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on Thursday and December’s personal consumption expenditures price index on Friday. These are seen to affect the Federal Reserve’s stance on monetary policy moving forward.
Overall, S&P 500 grew 0.2% to 4,850, while NASDAQ was up 0.3% to 15,360.
Tweet of the Day
Understanding Nvidia's GPU shortage
'Everybody wishes Nvidia could produce more A/H100 GPUs.'
– An executive at a cloud provider.
'We're so short on GPUs that the less people use our products, the better. We’d love it if they used them less because we don’t have enough GPUs.'… pic.twitter.com/rWrcvCerZ9
— The AI Investor (@The_AI_Investor) January 18, 2024
Chart of the Day
Here is the one-year chart of Five Below (FIVE) as of December 27, 2023, when the stock was at $213.
Five Below’s profits are hampered by shoplifters. Overall, the company delivered -10% profit growth as sales increased 14%. The reason for the negative profit growth was gross margins decreased to 30.3% from 32.2% a year ago due to shoplifting. In addition, same-store sales increased only 3%. Such was driven by the Five Beyond format – stores that offer items above the traditional $5 threshold. Approximately 50% of the comparable store base now adopts this format.
Money is tight right now. So consumers are focused on buying things they need, like candy and makeup. Five Below did see strength in games and toys because the company sells inexpensive items and consumers are looking for deals.
FIVE is part of the Growth Portfolio.
