From the Wall Street Journal’s "Stock Futures Fall Ahead of Earnings Season" posted early Monday:
U.S. stock futures declined as earnings season is set to kick off this week and investors worried about the impact of inflation on corporate profits...
Stocks staged a recovery in recent days, with the S&P 500 rising nearly 2% last week. The rally cooled on Friday after a stronger-than-expected jobs report showed the labor market is still hot, raising the probability that the Federal Reserve could continue with aggressive interest rate increases and potentially cause a recession. The next key data release is on Wednesday, with the U.S. consumer-price index for June.
Investors are also awaiting corporate earnings reports for indications of how much higher prices and weaker consumer sentiment have eroded companies’ profits.
“We’re in a backdrop where central banks are going to continue raising interest rates and the underlying market narrative continues to be one of potentially rising recession risks. We’re going to see markets react to different data points, react to earnings,” said Laura Cooper, a macro strategist at BlackRock. “That sets us up for quite a volatile period ahead.”
“We’re cautious on equities, we’re not advocating for buy the dip at this current juncture,” Ms. Cooper said.
Charts: Yahoo!Finance sees a bullish fast-stochastic pattern. Max pain rises to $145 with a call mountain and a put peak both at $145. That's a first for me.
An accelerated share repurchase (ASR) is when a publicly-traded company commits to buy back large blocks of its outstanding shares using an investment bank to facilitate the deal. Because these deals are structured to happen over many months, there is no “insider trading” issue.
Of course, the market price at which those shares are bought back is totally out of Apple’s control, so there’s “risk” associated with the investment. But it also is a way for Apple to help support its valuation long term. As most know by now, share buybacks increase the percentage ownership of the remaining shares.
Thus, when Apple finally purchases back half the shares, those shares held prior to buybacks will own twice as much Apple Inc as was the case just prior to buybacks. If Apple’s value proposition has increased to 150%, then doubling that equals a 300% potential gain. If the value proposition has doubled by that time, that’s a 400% gain. And so on.