What to watch
Walmart: Grocery giant Walmart’s 90% plus share price gain between the beginning of 2016 and end of 2019 was in part driven by the firm’s successful transition to an online world. The company reports its Q1 2020 earnings today, having outperformed the broader market by a significant margin in 2020. Year-to-date, Walmart stock is up 7.4%, and 25.8% over the past 12 months. Investors will be watching the earnings report closely for signs of how the company’s e-commerce business has benefited from the pandemic versus other giants such as Amazon. Analyst expectations for the company’s Q1 earnings are close to where they were three months ago. Currently, 24 analysts rate the stock as a buy or overweight, seven as a hold, and two as an underweight or sell.
Home Depot: Home improvement retailer Home Depot has been another beneficiary of the coronavirus pandemic, with its share price up 12.4% year-to-date. Along with rival Lowe’s, the firm is benefiting from Americans choosing to use their time stuck at home for DIY. The company reports its latest quarterly earnings on Tuesday investors will be watching closely for how sales have held up, with DIY demand facing off with supply chain issues and altered operating hours. Currently, 20 analysts rate the stock as a buy or overweight, 10 as a hold, and one as an underweight.
NetEase: Nasdaq listed Chinese Internet and gaming firm NetEase reports its first quarter earnings late this evening New York time. The company’s Nasdaq listing has jumped 24.5% year-to-date, as its online gaming business is a clear potential beneficiary of people being stuck at home. According to Zacks Equity Research, some new gaming title launches in China are likely to have helped drive subscriber growth for NetEase in the first quarter, although a weak online advertising market may have hurt the firm.
Crypto corner: Bitcoin block mining slowest since 2017
Mining of Bitcoin blocks has slowed to its slowest pace since 2017, thanks to the recent halving event. The halving saw the reward for mining a Bitcoin token cut by 50%.
As a result, the creation of new blocks has slowed, according to one analyst. On Sunday just 95 new Bitcoin blocks were created, an event the analyst explained, that had only occurred eight times in the last decade.
Bitcoin blocks are files where records of the Bitcoin network are kept and are created as miners mine the cryptoasset. A slowing of the block creation is contiguous with a slowdown in mining.
Bitcoin’s price has tread water in the past 24 hours, down around 2% in all. Elsewhere, Ethereum was also down by just over 1% and XRP down the same.
All data, figures & charts are valid as of 19/05/2020. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you can afford to lose.
This is a marketing communication and should not be taken as investment advice, personal recommendation, or an offer of, or solicitation to buy or sell, any financial instruments. This material has been prepared without having regard to any particular investment objectives or financial situation, and has not been prepared in accordance with the legal and regulatory requirements to promote independent research. Any references to past performance of a financial instrument, index or a packaged investment product are not, and should not be taken as, a reliable indicator of future results. eToro makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared utilizing publicly-available information.
