From the Wall Street Journal’s "Stock Futures Rise Ahead of Inflation Data" posted early Wednesday:
Investors are laser-focused on U.S. inflation data for June, due to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The fastest pace of consumer-price growth in four decades has upended financial markets this year by pushing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at a rapid clip.
The end of the central bank’s pandemic-era stimulus policies has dragged on the stock market, boosted yields on government and corporate bonds and sent the dollar higher. More recently, the Fed’s drive to tighten monetary policy has raised concerns of a looming recession.
“The inflation data look close to a peak in most of the major economies,” said Paul O’Connor, head of multiasset at Janus Henderson Investors. “But I think the central banks are going to want to see much more than that before they give the all clear.”
The consumer-price index is expected to have increased 8.8% in June from the same month last year, according to economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. That would mark an acceleration from the 8.6% recorded in May. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, is expected to slow to 5.7% from May’s 6% rate.
Charts: Yahoo!Finance sees a bullish fast-stochastic pattern. Max pain slips to $144 with a call mountain at $145 and a put peak at $135.
UPDATE: CPI Report Live Updates: U.S. Inflation Reached 9.1% in June
Hope Apple supercharged its ASR purchases….
Yesterday you said:
“This low volume is in part due to Apple’s blackout, which at 10% of total volume would equal 9.4 M shares/day that Apple isn’t buying. Of course, Apple will almost certainly be doing ASRs, but ASRs need to be arranged before the quarter ends and we’re almost two weeks in. Also, ASRs per quarter have been at most about $12 billion. At $146/share, that’s about 82 million shares bought back over a quarter, max.”
In Q2 2022, Apple spent north of $22.9B buying up 141.9M shares from Jan through March 2022. From Dec. 26, 2021 through January 29 (so called blackout month or period before earning report Jan. 27, 2022), they bought 43.33M shares @ $170.99, spending $7.58B, similar to what they spent in February and March. I think your ASR estimate is low.
I fully expect Apple to have spent $20-24B this last quarter buying back stock on current ASR program. If Apple chose to, they could have had a special ASR set up for additional purchases when AAPL stock dipped below $137 (-25% from ATH) for a few days in May and June. I’m estimating Apple purchased >155M shares last quarter at an average price of $147 overall, spending $22.8B or more. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they spent an extra $5-8B in a special ASR buying up additional shares in June while the stock languished in the $130’s.
I admit not having avidly tracked ASR spending since Apple decided to forego announcing detailed product information a few years back, so it’s possible they’ve become more aggressive since then. My last look was back in 2019 when they peaked with a $12 B ASR repurchase.
However, I would be astonished to find that Apple “spent $20-24B this last quarter buying back stock on current ASR program”. Not unhappy, but astonished.
Also you said: “ I’m estimating Apple purchased >155M shares last quarter at an average price of $147 overall, spending $22.8B or more.”
That’s open market purchasing, or Apple buying direct. To say that they essentially doubled that purchase using ASRs is, frankly, out of character for Apple, which has typically been very conservative in that department.
We’ll see….
It is complete theater of the absurd that a women might be persecuted, er prosecuted for traveling to New Jersey to get health care unavailable in her home state, partially on the basis of a period tracking app. Apple and/or the app developers may one day be sued by such a victim of injustice. Apple’s legal team may chose to stand back and see what occurs next or it may pro-actively establish new App Store policies regarding period tracking apps & privacy. History suggests the latter.