What Cramer is watching Wednesday — Boeing, Microsoft, Alphabet all pop; Humana beats big

Published Wed, Jul 27 20228:53 AM EDT

What I am looking at July 27, 2022 Boeing (BA) misses quarter but expects positive cash flow in 2022. The Dow stock up nearly 3%, helping support the overall market ahead of the opening bell Wednesday. The Fed meeting ends in the afternoon. Another 75 basis point interest rate hike expected. Where stocks close is anybody's guess. Then, after the closing bell Wednesday, Club holdings Qualcomm (QCOM), Ford (F) and Meta Platforms (META) report earnings. Club holding Microsoft (MSFT) not as bad as feared quarter after the closing bell Tuesday. Excellent forecast but helped by elongated depreciation of equipment. In response, analyst price targets largely lower but BMO Capital raised. Larger, bigger, Azure. Consumer weak but doesn't matter because the rest is great. Club holding Alphabet (GOOGL), also after-the-bell, didn't really make the quarter . But with the stock down more than 25% for the year, you have to take the better-than-feared results and the forecast. That said, Google is still the No. 1 ad buy and they're still ramping spend for Google Cloud services, which is great for Marvell (MRVL), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA). Best readthroughs. This is NOT Snap (SNAP). Calls into question if SNAP is dead. Club holding Humana (HUM) reports a big per-share earnings beat of $8.67 versus $7.67; but only raised the full-year outlook by 25 cents with the Covid headwind down to 50 cents from a full dollar. It could have raised more but it is now investing 75 cents EPS in additional marketing and distribution investments in the second half of the year to further support its 2023 Medicare Advantage growth. It's also covering 65 cents EPS dilution from a pending divestiture. HUM down premarket so maybe there is some profit taking with the stock at its all-time high into earnings. But the people who are selling the stock this morning because it didn't raise more must not realize that Medicare Advantage is the most lucrative part of the business and a reacceleration in membership growth will take the stock even higher. Elliott taking big position in PayPal (PYPL). Do they want CEO Dan Schulman to go? Remember the much-loved CFO John Rainey went to the poorly performing Club holding Walmart (WMT) not long ago. Visa (V) reports amazing numbers and sees no slowdown whatsoever, not even in the last few weeks. The numbers here are extraordinary especially when compared to pre-Covid pandemic. Here are some comps at Visa: 136% volume versus 2019, cross border has gone from 82% to 104% over 2019. CEO Al Kelly calls it a "strong recovery," with spending "stable but improving." Commercial transactions way up. "No indication of any slowdown even in most recent weeks." Cross border "continues to strengthen." Percentage spending on GOODS remains high. "Discretionary spending" strengthened. Affluent cross border traffic. Restaurants, travel and entertainment the strongest. Bought back 2.5 billion shares into the gloom. Shopify (SHOP) total giveback. The stock is down more than 5% premarket after Tuesday's 14% decline. At SHOP, gross merchandise volume $46.9 billion versus $48.43 expected. Consumers no longer voting with wallet? Larger strategic change? Now profitability. Goalpost changed like Uber (UBER). And did they say the same thing as Club holding Amazon (AMZN) about Covid online shopping pull-forward reverting? Loss 3 cents, slightly wider than expected. Predicting operating loss for the second half. Chipotle (CMG) can raise prices but does see double digit going down to single digit. High hopes of much higher average unit volume (AUV) per store. Strong quarter and no sign of real issues. Even while others raise price targets, it looks like McDonald's (MCD) is under pressure because Deutsche Bank goes to hold from buy. But RBC Capital and BMO raise their price targets on MCD. Largely price target increases 3M (MMM) from Wells Fargo, Mizuho, Citi. Barclays lowers PT. Enphase Energy (ENPH) much better than expected: Multiple price target boosts on Wall Street. Lysol maker Reckitt (RBGLY): Incredibly strong both in health and nutrition; remarkable quarter, and looks like they kept the strength they saw in cleanliness from pandemic. Responsible increase in spending. Margins up 290 basis points. LVMH (LVMUY) much stronger 19% organic revenue growth but analysts only looking for 13% going forward. Big slowdown. Raytheon Technologies (RTX) price target lowered to $115 per share from $125 at RBC. Wells Fargo lowered PT, too. Again great quarter, but still price targets cut. T-Mobile US (TMUS): 1.7 million subscriber additions, much more than AT & T (T) and Verizon (VZ) combined. Better-than-expected free cash flow of nearly $1.8 billion. Mortgage application volume decreased 1.8% from one week ago, a fourth straight week of declines to the lowest level of activity since Feb 2000. Bad. Refinance demand down another 4% week over week and off 83% year over year. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long QCOM, F, META, MSFT, GOOGL, MRVL, WMT, AMD, NVDA and HUM. 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. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images News | Getty Images

What I am looking at July 27, 2022

Boeing (BA) misses quarter but expects positive cash flow in 2022. The Dow stock up nearly 3%, helping support the overall market ahead of the opening bell Wednesday. The Fed meeting ends in the afternoon. Another 75 basis point interest rate hike expected. Where stocks close is anybody's guess. Then, after the closing bell Wednesday, Club holdings Qualcomm (QCOM), Ford (F) and Meta Platforms (META) report earnings.