Stocks opened higher Wednesday and kept climbing through the close. In focus were comments from several Federal Reserve officials – many of whom echoed the hawkish tone Fed Chair Jerome Powell has struck recently regarding interest rates.
However, the latest round of corporate earnings reports lifted sentiment, with burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) among those posting strong results.
There were no fewer than four senior central bank officials making appearances Wednesday, including Fed Governor Adriana Kugler. Speaking at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C., Kugler said that she's pleased with the progress that's been made so far with bringing inflation down and added that "at some point" it will be appropriate to cut the federal funds rate.
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Still, she emphasized that "it is critical" inflation returns to the Fed's 2% target and "if progress on disinflation stalls, it may be appropriate to hold the target range steady at its current level for longer."
According to CME Group's FedWatch Tool, futures traders are currently pricing in an 18% chance the Fed will cut rates by a quarter-percentage point in March, down from 53% one week ago. The odds for a May cut are 53%.
Chipotle, Roblox rise after earnings
In single-stock news. Chipotle Mexican Grill rose 7.1% after the burrito chain reported top- and bottom-line beats for its fourth quarter. The company also said same-store sales were up 8.4% for the three-month period, higher than analysts were expecting.
"Same-store sales benefited from higher customer traffic and, to a lesser extent, an increase in the average check," says Argus Research analyst John Staszak.
Roblox (RBLX) was another post-earnings gainer, with the metaverse stock surging 10.3% after its results. In addition to fourth-quarter revenue that was up 30% year-over-year to $749.9 million, bookings jumped 25% to $1.1 billion. Average daily active users and average monthly unique payers were also up by double-digit percentage points.
Snap craters after top-line miss
At the other end of the spectrum was Snap (SNAP), which crumbled 34.6% after earnings. While the Snapchat parent reported higher-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings of 8 cents per share, revenue of $1.36 billion fell short of analysts' estimates. Additionally, the company gave weak first-quarter guidance.
"While Snap may have been spending in the right places, the returns on those investments have been slower to materialize than some would like, and 2023 may be remembered as a lost year for the company, where user growth decelerated and revenues were flat," says Scott Kessler, global sector lead for technology, media and telecommunications at Third Bridge. While Snap seems to have made some progress with its initiatives, today's price action indicates that investors don't want to wait, Kessler adds.
Buffett scoops up more OXY shares
In non-earnings news, Occidental Petroleum (OXY, +0.1%) made headlines after a Tuesday night regulatory filing revealed Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) bought 4.3 million OXY shares between February 1 and February 5.
Buffett & Co. first started accumulating shares of the energy stock in the first quarter of 2022. At the end of Q3 2023, the holding company owned more than 224 million Occidental shares, accounting for 4.6% of the Berkshire Hathaway equity portfolio. Considering OXY declined 3.6% in January, Buffett was likely buying the dip on one of his favorite oil stocks.
As for the main indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4% to 38,677 and the S&P 500 added 0.8% to 4,995, both new record closes. The Nasdaq Composite tacked on 1.0% to 15,756.
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