🗞 7 Industry Leaders at 52-week Lows

Happy Sunday!

Here’s what’s on the docket for this week’s newsletter:

• 🚗 Uber expands self-driving services

• 🛫 Boeing faces first Union Strike in 16 years

• 📉 7 Industry Leaders that hit new 52-week lows

And much more, let’s dive in!

News of the week

• 🚗 Uber Expands Partnership with Waymo: On Friday, ride-sharing leader Uber announced that it was expanding its partnership with Alphabet’s autonomous driving division Waymo. The partnership which has allowed Uber customers to request Waymo rides in Phoenix, Arizona since May 2023 is now being expanded to Austin and Atlanta in early 2025.

  This means that starting next year, qualifying riders in those cities may be met with one of Waymo’s fully-autonomous, all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles as opposed to a traditional Uber driver.

  With many Uber investors worried that Waymo’s self-driving technology was a threat to the durability of its business, this partnership expansion puts much of those concerns to rest. Uber’s stock was up 6% on Friday.

• 🛫 Boeing Sees First Union Strike since 2008: Being a Boeing shareholder hasn’t been easy over the last 5 years. Between two high-profile 2019 crashes and a recent mid-flight scare on an Alaska Airlines flight, Boeing’s airplane production has been cut in half as they grapple with fleet groundings and intervention from the FAA, among other slowdowns.

  But if the existing production slowdowns weren’t enough, this week more than 30,000 Boeing workers walked off the job in protest of the recently proposed labor contract. This is the first Union strike for Boeing since 2008 and it comes at a time when Boeing is already struggling to meet demand.

  Boeing’s Chief Financial Officer Brian West stated that the company wants to get back to the negotiating table to quickly find a resolution while also being “laser-focused” on conserving cash. Boeing stock was down 3% on Friday.

• 🤖 Oracle Expects a Big Lift from AI: Shares of leading database operator Oracle jumped more than 13% this week after the company surpassed its quarterly estimates and offered some optimistic long-term projections for its business.

  During the company’s annual meeting after the earnings release, Oracle executives stated that they forecast $104 billion in revenue for 2029, which is nearly double their current revenue base. In powering these assumptions, Larry Ellison stated “our cloud partnerships with AWS and Microsoft and Google will turbocharge the growth of our database business for years to come.”

  With this week’s stock price jump, Oracle’s largest shareholder Larry Ellison officially surpassed Jeff Bezos as the 2nd richest person in the world.

• 📉 Adobe Underwhelms: Creative software giant Adobe reported better than expected 3rd quarter earnings on Thursday but came in light on its guidance for the remainder of the year.

  Adobe delivered $5.4 billion in revenue, which was up 11% from the same period a year ago and expanded its operating margins from 34.7% to 36.8%. However, the company guided for ~10% growth in the 4th quarter for its largest segment (Digital Media Revenue), which implies a bit of a slowdown from the current growth rate.

  Adobe investors reacted negatively to the news sending the stock down more than 8% on Friday. As a reminder, the “beat by a penny, miss by a penny” reactions can often crowd out the long-term reality for many businesses. Here’s what Adobe’s revenue looks like over the last decade.

7 Industry Leaders at New 52-Week Lows

1.) Chevron

Chevron is a leader in the upstream and downstream production of crude oil and natural gas.

• 1-yr Return: -12.5%

• Market Cap: $257 billion

• Forward P/E: 11x

2.) Boeing

Boeing, along with its largest competitor AirBus, maintain a global duopoly on the aerospace design and manufacturing industry.

• 1-yr Return: -25%

• Market Cap: $100.4 billion

• Forward P/E: 122x

3.) Intel

Intel designs and manufactures semiconductors. Despite lackluster stock performance over the last decade, Intel still holds the majority market share in CPU production globally.

• 1-yr Return: -50%

• Market Cap: $82 billion

• Forward P/E: 53x

4.) Stellantis NV

Stellantis is a leading automotive manufacturer globally. It's home to brands like Dodge, Jeep, Fiat, Chrysler, and more.

• 1-yr Return: -13.5%

• Market Cap: $45 billion

• Forward P/E: 3x

5.) Estée Lauder

Estée Lauder is a global leader in the cosmetics space. The company is home to brands like Estée Lauder, Clinique, Aveda, and much more.

• 1-yr Return: -44%

• Market Cap: $31 billion

• Forward P/E: 28.9x

6.) Dollar General 

Dollar General is the largest dollar store operator in the US. With recent pressure on its customers, Dollar General has seen a rapid decline in profit margins.

• 1-yr Return: -35%

• Market Cap: $18 billion

• Forward P/E: 13.6x

7.) Topgolf Callaway

Topgolf Callaway is a leader in golf equipment and apparel, and is the largest operator of tech-enabled driving ranges.

• 1-yr Return: -43%

• Market Cap: $1.9 billion

• Forward P/E: 287x

Meme of the week

We’ve all been there.

The stocks you sell burst higher and the ones you hold lag behind.

For all the fundamental investors out there, this is your weekly reminder that despite the short-term ebbs and flows, over the long-term stock performance tends to follow business performance.

So focus on the business, trust your work, and ignore the noise!

Oh, and by the way, having all the right financial data at your fingertips makes those buy and sell decisions a little easier, so checkout FinChat.io.