What Cramer is watching Wednesday — AMD gains, Starbucks' plea, Lyft struggles

Published Wed, May 4 20229:29 AM EDTUpdated Wed, May 4 20229:46 AM EDT

What I am looking at May 4, 2022 Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is not a PC company. It's a high-performance company with telco, defense, aerospace and cloud. Still hard to get consoles. Taking a great deal of share on the high end from Intel (INTC) while giving its rival the low end. Shares surged more than 6% in the premarket after chipmaker reported beats on sales and earnings . The messianic Pat Gelsinger (Intel CEO) is more focused on building fabs than chips. When will people understand this? Revenues up, gross margins up, much faster growth from recent acquisition Xilinx; company hadn't been able to talk about it. Join our live Monthly Meeting tomorrow at a new time of 12:00 p.m. ET . We're fleshing out our stance post-Fed decision. How bad the rate hike? 50 basis points and go slow on the QT (quantitative tightening)? S & P Oscillator flashing minus 5.9, meaning the market's oversold. Starbucks (SBUX) reports very good 12% same-store growth in the U.S. and an impassioned plea by CEO Howard Schultz for workers not to join the union. He thinks the 10% gain that would come from a buyback isn't as good as investing in his own people. He did make it sound like employees had been shafted in favor of the shareholders and that everyone loses when that happens. Suspending guidance because no one knows what will happen with the curious position of the Chinese. But the U.S. is doing great. Evercore ISI upgrades SBUX to buy from hold. Airbnb (ABNB) is about to have a gigantic amount of cash flow. It is crushing it by having fewer employees than it had a couple of years ago and far more homes for rent. In its WEAKEST quarter, the company did $1.2 billion cash flow. For the first quarter, the company reported more than 100 million bookings. The work-from-anywhere boom has taken hold and Airbnb may be the biggest winner. Revenue of $1.5 billion, up 70% year over year. Product refresh coming May 11; last year 150 new features launched. And yet: price target cuts at Stifel, Mizuho, UBS, Barclays, Piper Sandler. Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) is too cellphone dependent, and therefore too dependent on China where the decision by the government to shut down so much of the country is mystifying to still one more company. Earnings per share of $2.63 in line with consensus. Still price target cuts: UBS to $133 from $145; Piper Sandler to $145 from $190; Mizuho to $170 from $175. Lyft is a disaster, has to raise driver pay. Does that mean that the customer gets squeezed or does that mean the shareholder gets squeezed? Revenue per person not bad — but it is an investment year. Uber loss of $3.04 per share (GAAP) unacceptable in the new world. Delivery (gross bookings) $13.9 billion, up 12% year over year. Uber has far fewer problems. Rockwell Automation (ROK) — weaker quarter. Mizuho cut target to $215 from $345. Baird drops to $255 from $310. Citi cuts to $310 from $357. Barclays slashes to $220 from $300. This is almost all semiconductors. Texas Instruments (TXN) not making enough chips; Intel really not giving Rockwell what they want ... really amazing how weak Intel is ... CVS blows away expectations. EPS of $2.22 versus $2.15 consensus. Aetna more than 600,000 added. Retail pharmacy raises fiscal year 2022 adjusted earnings to $8.20-$8.40 per share, from $8.10-$8.30. Regeneron (REGN) reports first-quarter revenue of $2.96 billion versus $2.72 billion. Dupixent sales increased 43% to $1.81 billion. Dupont (DD) price target dropped to $97 from $101 at Mizuho. Deutsche Bank lowered to $80 from $90. CEO Edward Breen will buy back billions but will it matter? Too close to China. NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) price target raised to $205 from $200 at Mizuho; But UBS lowers price to $160 from $170. Marriott (MAR) earnings $1.25 per share vs. 90 cents estimate. Much better. Revolve (RVLV) on Mad Money tonight. Multiple PT cuts, but revenue growth of 58.5%, well above expectations. S & P Global (SPGI) — Revenue growth low single digits and boosts cap ex. Estee Lauder (EL) price target lowered to $274 from $289 at Deutsche Bank; Credit Suisse cuts to $320 from $365; Wells Fargo drops to $290 from $310. Carvana (CVNA) downgraded to hold from a buy at Morgan Stanley, cites significant first-quarter miss. Price target slashed to $105 from $360. Had to raise $1 billion in equity. $3.27 billion in debt. What happens if this company has to sell inventory? Moderna (MRNA) adjusted EPS of $8.58 vs. $4.98 expected. Akamai Technologies (AKAM) downgrade ... deteriorating traffic and lack of catalyst. Emerson Electric (EMR) broad-based strength up 13% in orders. Underlying sales up 10%. Still has shortages and all sorts of dynamic situations, but good. Helped by energy dynamics. Hexcel (HXL) stronger-than-expected commercial ... double-upgraded to buy at Bank of America, with price target of $65, up from $45. Big quarterly dividend. Third straight quarter of double-digit top-line growth. Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG) battle. Stifel goes to hold from buy, cut numbers, Hawthorne sales down. On other hand, JPMorgan raised estimates. Nothing working in their favor ... can't figure out this upgrade at all, except stock is trading at same level when it was earning $3.75 and now $7. Morgan Stanley: global freight supply chain choke points are easing but not yet back to normal. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long AMD. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. 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A customer exits a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, U.S., December 7, 2021.

Lindsay DeDario | Reuters

What I am looking at May 4, 2022

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is not a PC company. It's a high-performance company with telco, defense, aerospace and cloud. Still hard to get consoles. Taking a great deal of share on the high end from Intel (INTC) while giving its rival the low end. Shares surged more than 6% in the premarket after chipmaker reported beats on sales and earnings. The messianic Pat Gelsinger (Intel CEO) is more focused on building fabs than chips. When will people understand this? Revenues up, gross margins up, much faster growth from recent acquisition Xilinx; company hadn't been able to talk about it.
Join our live Monthly Meeting tomorrow at a new time of 12:00 p.m. ET. We're fleshing out our stance post-Fed decision. How bad the rate hike? 50 basis points and go slow on the QT (quantitative tightening)? S&P Oscillator flashing minus 5.9, meaning the market's oversold.