News and analysis
Delta Air Lines stock rose markedly by low double digits in the first ten days of the new year. The U.S. carrier has served more than 200 million customers in 2024, when it was also recognized by J.D. Power, a leading American data analytics and consumer intelligence company, for being No. 1 in First/Business and Premium Economy Passenger Satisfaction. Travelers became more willing to spend extra money for swanky seats when meeting a high level of service. Delta is just positioning itself as the nation's premium airline. And what's more important, its Christmas quarter's earnings reportedly surpassed average analyst pool projections. Driven by stronger travel demand, smart financial management and capacity discipline, Delta business provided last three-months' profit of $1.85 per share vs $1.28 at the same period one year ago, compared to $1.75 in consensus estimates. On January 10, the airline industry leader put its future profit levels within a range between $0.70 and $1 per share in the current quarter through the end of March, while analyst expectations were focused on $0.77 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG. The starting months of each year always perform worse. It is clear that all carriers made losses in the Covid years of 2020-2022, but Delta profits only recovered into a range from $0.25 to $0.45 in the first quarter of 2023 and 2024, respectively, but Q1 profit numbers varied from $0.75 to $0.96 even in the three blessed years before the pandemic. Delta added that it is forecasting annual earnings in excess of $7.35 a share, which would be the highest in its 100-year history, based on its planned revenue growth of 7% to 9% in the March quarter from a year ago. The announcement could be compared to an adjusted profit of $6.16 a share in 2024. The company happily breaks through ticket prices' rising effects, almost undisturbed by a reduction in airline seats in the domestic market, which was peculiar for most carriers. Thus, new expectations created a fertile ground for setting new price records, even though price movements on Delta charts look most convincing among its other American rivals.
By the way, Citigroup analysts freshly updated their outlook on Delta Air Lines shares to raise their price target to $80 from the previous $77, vs the actual range around $65 per share where the stock just came after a reasonable market correction from last week's and all-time highs. Citigroup said it has included factors like higher revenue per available seat mile, projections of slightly lower fuel prices, increased taxation, a minor rise in share count, and the incorporation of fourth-quarter 2024 results into their financial model, which has projected Delta's profit at $7.49 per share in 2024 and $8.72 in 2025. Delta shares are Buy-rated at Citi, and we agree with their positive estimates in general, while keeping in mind even better price goals somewhere between $82.5 and $85.
Tezos (XTZ) has declined slightly by 0.2% this week, trading at $1.249, following Bitcoin’s (BTC) drop to $89,158, which triggered widespread altcoin sell-offs due to concerns of a potential further decline in BTC to $80,000. However, Bitcoin managed to hold above the critical support level at $89,000-$91,000, offering some relief to the broader crypto market.
Speculation about a shift in U.S. trade policy has provided additional support to crypto assets. Reports suggest the new U.S. administration may pursue a gradual increase in tariffs rather than an abrupt hike, which could help alleviate inflationary pressures and lead to a less aggressive monetary stance from the Federal Reserve.
This development is a positive signal for the cryptocurrency market and may help Tezos maintain its position above the key support level of $1.200.
VeChain (VET) has fallen 12.7% this week, trading at $0.0445, underperforming the broader cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency, has declined by 5.6% to $93,220, with bearish momentum building as it approaches key support at $89,000-$91,000. This decline is largely attributed to tightening monetary conditions in the United States, which continue to weigh on risk assets. Investor confidence is further shaken by significant net outflows from spot BTC-ETFs, which lost $583 million on Wednesday, marking the second-largest single-day outflow on record.
If BTC falls below the critical support level of $89,000-$91,000, VeChain is likely to extend its losses, with prices potentially declining another 10% to $0.0400. A sustained drop in BTC could push VET even lower, towards $0.0300. Conversely, a strong rebound in BTC prices to the $100,000 level could drive VET back up to $0.0500, representing a recovery of approximately 12% from current levels.
The very first slice of statistical data on business activity from the United States this year reaffirmed an almost clear irrelevance and even potential hurtfulness of any immediate steps towards further lowering interest rates on U.S. Dollar-nominated loans from a purely economic point of view. The ISM Manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers Index), based on polls compiled from executives in over 400 industrial companies in late December, came out at 49.3 points vs 48.4 a month ago and 48.2 in average analyst estimates. This showed that a slowdown was occurring at a slower or even insignificant pace, keeping inflation risks on the table, especially when the price component increased from 50.3 to 52.5 with a similar rate of increase in new orders. Meanwhile, non-manufacturing PMI came out at 54.1 on Tuesday, compared to 53.5 in analyst polls and 52.1 a month ago, with a contribution of business activity components even jumped to a surprising 58.2 against declining from 57.2 in November to only 53.7 in December.
In other words, the economy is not cooling, and is rather in a positive acceleration, which in turn may lead to a recovery in wage rises and therefore to higher demand pressure, which may be reflected soon in higher producer purchase and output prices. Doubts of the major U.S. financial regulator are understandable at this point after its triple rate cut from 5.5% to 4.5% in 2024. The Federal Reserve (Fed) will now pay closer attention not only to consumer inflation measures, but also to producer prices (PPI), which is just going to be released on coming Tuesday, January 14. And so, this will become the next reference point in the further U.S. Dollar’s trajectory. The Greenback index (DX) is picking up steam since reaching a new record high for the last two years at 109.35, with its temporary pullbacks being limited by a 107.50 support area that previously served as a strong multi-month technical resistance.
In this context, the British Pound (GBPUSD) updated its lows since November 2023 to touch 1.2237 on January 9, EURUSD feels quite comfortable within a range between 1.02 and 1.0450, which corresponds to its 2-year bottom, and having a bias towards a possible further decline. The Aussie (AUDUSD) is one-step away from taking the path for a breakthrough to a quite unknown territory of its 5-year lows that were last time recorded when the initial outbreak of the Covid-19 happened.
A varying extent of the American Dollar strength is surely data dependent as the market community is eagerly waiting for the U.S. job data later today. The average expectations on new Nonfarm Payrolls is just a bit above 150,000 vs 227,000 in early December 2024 and nearly 160,000 for the previous four months on average. However, any value close to 150,000, plus or minus 20,000, or any higher number, may be considered as another positive sign for the Greenback, following the ADP national employment report which contained only 122,000 on Wednesday. The oppressive nature of average hourly wage in its dynamics, +0.4% each time from September to December, also matters.
The protective quality of investing more funds into the U.S. Dollar and U.S. bonds against tariff threats is switched on anyway, based on more than a 95% chance for the Fed to keep rates on pause at its January 29 meeting, according to CME's FedWatch tool. Federal Reserve officials never go against a well-established market consensus, when it is almost unanimous, for not to rock the boat of relative market trend stability. The central bankers' reluctance to shift the Fed fund rates lower before mid-March, if not early May, continues to play in favour of short-term speculative transactions on the foreign exchange market, bearing in mind all the listed currency instruments. Some intraday volatility may take place, especially in the case of appearing an abnormal two-digit non-farm value, but not a change in overall direction.
Merck & Co (MRK) stocks have shown signs of becoming a compelling buy opportunity. Over the past six months, the stock has been in a downtrend, declining 29.8% to $94.50 per share. However, since mid-November, MRK has demonstrated a reversal of momentum, rebounding by 10.0% to reach $104.87 on December 5. Following a brief pullback and consolidation period, the stock has retested the downtrend resistance and appears poised to continue its upward trajectory.
With prices currently positioned to target $110.00, this represents a potential 9-10% upside from the present levels. Setting a stop-loss at $93.50 aligns with a prudent risk management strategy, providing protection against further downside while allowing for upside potential. The recent consolidation phase further supports the case for a breakout, making this an attractive moment to consider initiating or adding to a position in MRK.
Delta Air Lines stock rose markedly by low double digits in the first ten days of the new year. The U.S. carrier has served more than 200 million customers in 2024, when it was also recognized by J.D. Power, a leading American data analytics and consumer intelligence company, for being No. 1 in First/Business and Premium Economy Passenger Satisfaction. Travelers became more willing to spend extra money for swanky seats when meeting a high level of service. Delta is just positioning itself as the nation's premium airline. And what's more important, its Christmas quarter's earnings reportedly surpassed average analyst pool projections. Driven by stronger travel demand, smart financial management and capacity discipline, Delta business provided last three-months' profit of $1.85 per share vs $1.28 at the same period one year ago, compared to $1.75 in consensus estimates. On January 10, the airline industry leader put its future profit levels within a range between $0.70 and $1 per share in the current quarter through the end of March, while analyst expectations were focused on $0.77 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG. The starting months of each year always perform worse. It is clear that all carriers made losses in the Covid years of 2020-2022, but Delta profits only recovered into a range from $0.25 to $0.45 in the first quarter of 2023 and 2024, respectively, but Q1 profit numbers varied from $0.75 to $0.96 even in the three blessed years before the pandemic. Delta added that it is forecasting annual earnings in excess of $7.35 a share, which would be the highest in its 100-year history, based on its planned revenue growth of 7% to 9% in the March quarter from a year ago. The announcement could be compared to an adjusted profit of $6.16 a share in 2024. The company happily breaks through ticket prices' rising effects, almost undisturbed by a reduction in airline seats in the domestic market, which was peculiar for most carriers. Thus, new expectations created a fertile ground for setting new price records, even though price movements on Delta charts look most convincing among its other American rivals.
By the way, Citigroup analysts freshly updated their outlook on Delta Air Lines shares to raise their price target to $80 from the previous $77, vs the actual range around $65 per share where the stock just came after a reasonable market correction from last week's and all-time highs. Citigroup said it has included factors like higher revenue per available seat mile, projections of slightly lower fuel prices, increased taxation, a minor rise in share count, and the incorporation of fourth-quarter 2024 results into their financial model, which has projected Delta's profit at $7.49 per share in 2024 and $8.72 in 2025. Delta shares are Buy-rated at Citi, and we agree with their positive estimates in general, while keeping in mind even better price goals somewhere between $82.5 and $85.
Tezos (XTZ) has declined slightly by 0.2% this week, trading at $1.249, following Bitcoin’s (BTC) drop to $89,158, which triggered widespread altcoin sell-offs due to concerns of a potential further decline in BTC to $80,000. However, Bitcoin managed to hold above the critical support level at $89,000-$91,000, offering some relief to the broader crypto market.
Speculation about a shift in U.S. trade policy has provided additional support to crypto assets. Reports suggest the new U.S. administration may pursue a gradual increase in tariffs rather than an abrupt hike, which could help alleviate inflationary pressures and lead to a less aggressive monetary stance from the Federal Reserve.
This development is a positive signal for the cryptocurrency market and may help Tezos maintain its position above the key support level of $1.200.
VeChain (VET) has fallen 12.7% this week, trading at $0.0445, underperforming the broader cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency, has declined by 5.6% to $93,220, with bearish momentum building as it approaches key support at $89,000-$91,000. This decline is largely attributed to tightening monetary conditions in the United States, which continue to weigh on risk assets. Investor confidence is further shaken by significant net outflows from spot BTC-ETFs, which lost $583 million on Wednesday, marking the second-largest single-day outflow on record.
If BTC falls below the critical support level of $89,000-$91,000, VeChain is likely to extend its losses, with prices potentially declining another 10% to $0.0400. A sustained drop in BTC could push VET even lower, towards $0.0300. Conversely, a strong rebound in BTC prices to the $100,000 level could drive VET back up to $0.0500, representing a recovery of approximately 12% from current levels.
The very first slice of statistical data on business activity from the United States this year reaffirmed an almost clear irrelevance and even potential hurtfulness of any immediate steps towards further lowering interest rates on U.S. Dollar-nominated loans from a purely economic point of view. The ISM Manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers Index), based on polls compiled from executives in over 400 industrial companies in late December, came out at 49.3 points vs 48.4 a month ago and 48.2 in average analyst estimates. This showed that a slowdown was occurring at a slower or even insignificant pace, keeping inflation risks on the table, especially when the price component increased from 50.3 to 52.5 with a similar rate of increase in new orders. Meanwhile, non-manufacturing PMI came out at 54.1 on Tuesday, compared to 53.5 in analyst polls and 52.1 a month ago, with a contribution of business activity components even jumped to a surprising 58.2 against declining from 57.2 in November to only 53.7 in December.
In other words, the economy is not cooling, and is rather in a positive acceleration, which in turn may lead to a recovery in wage rises and therefore to higher demand pressure, which may be reflected soon in higher producer purchase and output prices. Doubts of the major U.S. financial regulator are understandable at this point after its triple rate cut from 5.5% to 4.5% in 2024. The Federal Reserve (Fed) will now pay closer attention not only to consumer inflation measures, but also to producer prices (PPI), which is just going to be released on coming Tuesday, January 14. And so, this will become the next reference point in the further U.S. Dollar’s trajectory. The Greenback index (DX) is picking up steam since reaching a new record high for the last two years at 109.35, with its temporary pullbacks being limited by a 107.50 support area that previously served as a strong multi-month technical resistance.
In this context, the British Pound (GBPUSD) updated its lows since November 2023 to touch 1.2237 on January 9, EURUSD feels quite comfortable within a range between 1.02 and 1.0450, which corresponds to its 2-year bottom, and having a bias towards a possible further decline. The Aussie (AUDUSD) is one-step away from taking the path for a breakthrough to a quite unknown territory of its 5-year lows that were last time recorded when the initial outbreak of the Covid-19 happened.
A varying extent of the American Dollar strength is surely data dependent as the market community is eagerly waiting for the U.S. job data later today. The average expectations on new Nonfarm Payrolls is just a bit above 150,000 vs 227,000 in early December 2024 and nearly 160,000 for the previous four months on average. However, any value close to 150,000, plus or minus 20,000, or any higher number, may be considered as another positive sign for the Greenback, following the ADP national employment report which contained only 122,000 on Wednesday. The oppressive nature of average hourly wage in its dynamics, +0.4% each time from September to December, also matters.
The protective quality of investing more funds into the U.S. Dollar and U.S. bonds against tariff threats is switched on anyway, based on more than a 95% chance for the Fed to keep rates on pause at its January 29 meeting, according to CME's FedWatch tool. Federal Reserve officials never go against a well-established market consensus, when it is almost unanimous, for not to rock the boat of relative market trend stability. The central bankers' reluctance to shift the Fed fund rates lower before mid-March, if not early May, continues to play in favour of short-term speculative transactions on the foreign exchange market, bearing in mind all the listed currency instruments. Some intraday volatility may take place, especially in the case of appearing an abnormal two-digit non-farm value, but not a change in overall direction.
Merck & Co (MRK) stocks have shown signs of becoming a compelling buy opportunity. Over the past six months, the stock has been in a downtrend, declining 29.8% to $94.50 per share. However, since mid-November, MRK has demonstrated a reversal of momentum, rebounding by 10.0% to reach $104.87 on December 5. Following a brief pullback and consolidation period, the stock has retested the downtrend resistance and appears poised to continue its upward trajectory.
With prices currently positioned to target $110.00, this represents a potential 9-10% upside from the present levels. Setting a stop-loss at $93.50 aligns with a prudent risk management strategy, providing protection against further downside while allowing for upside potential. The recent consolidation phase further supports the case for a breakout, making this an attractive moment to consider initiating or adding to a position in MRK.
Delta Air Lines stock rose markedly by low double digits in the first ten days of the new year. The U.S. carrier has served more than 200 million customers in 2024, when it was also recognized by J.D. Power, a leading American data analytics and consumer intelligence company, for being No. 1 in First/Business and Premium Economy Passenger Satisfaction. Travelers became more willing to spend extra money for swanky seats when meeting a high level of service. Delta is just positioning itself as the nation's premium airline. And what's more important, its Christmas quarter's earnings reportedly surpassed average analyst pool projections. Driven by stronger travel demand, smart financial management and capacity discipline, Delta business provided last three-months' profit of $1.85 per share vs $1.28 at the same period one year ago, compared to $1.75 in consensus estimates. On January 10, the airline industry leader put its future profit levels within a range between $0.70 and $1 per share in the current quarter through the end of March, while analyst expectations were focused on $0.77 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG. The starting months of each year always perform worse. It is clear that all carriers made losses in the Covid years of 2020-2022, but Delta profits only recovered into a range from $0.25 to $0.45 in the first quarter of 2023 and 2024, respectively, but Q1 profit numbers varied from $0.75 to $0.96 even in the three blessed years before the pandemic. Delta added that it is forecasting annual earnings in excess of $7.35 a share, which would be the highest in its 100-year history, based on its planned revenue growth of 7% to 9% in the March quarter from a year ago. The announcement could be compared to an adjusted profit of $6.16 a share in 2024. The company happily breaks through ticket prices' rising effects, almost undisturbed by a reduction in airline seats in the domestic market, which was peculiar for most carriers. Thus, new expectations created a fertile ground for setting new price records, even though price movements on Delta charts look most convincing among its other American rivals.
By the way, Citigroup analysts freshly updated their outlook on Delta Air Lines shares to raise their price target to $80 from the previous $77, vs the actual range around $65 per share where the stock just came after a reasonable market correction from last week's and all-time highs. Citigroup said it has included factors like higher revenue per available seat mile, projections of slightly lower fuel prices, increased taxation, a minor rise in share count, and the incorporation of fourth-quarter 2024 results into their financial model, which has projected Delta's profit at $7.49 per share in 2024 and $8.72 in 2025. Delta shares are Buy-rated at Citi, and we agree with their positive estimates in general, while keeping in mind even better price goals somewhere between $82.5 and $85.
Tezos (XTZ) has declined slightly by 0.2% this week, trading at $1.249, following Bitcoin’s (BTC) drop to $89,158, which triggered widespread altcoin sell-offs due to concerns of a potential further decline in BTC to $80,000. However, Bitcoin managed to hold above the critical support level at $89,000-$91,000, offering some relief to the broader crypto market.
Speculation about a shift in U.S. trade policy has provided additional support to crypto assets. Reports suggest the new U.S. administration may pursue a gradual increase in tariffs rather than an abrupt hike, which could help alleviate inflationary pressures and lead to a less aggressive monetary stance from the Federal Reserve.
This development is a positive signal for the cryptocurrency market and may help Tezos maintain its position above the key support level of $1.200.
VeChain (VET) has fallen 12.7% this week, trading at $0.0445, underperforming the broader cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency, has declined by 5.6% to $93,220, with bearish momentum building as it approaches key support at $89,000-$91,000. This decline is largely attributed to tightening monetary conditions in the United States, which continue to weigh on risk assets. Investor confidence is further shaken by significant net outflows from spot BTC-ETFs, which lost $583 million on Wednesday, marking the second-largest single-day outflow on record.
If BTC falls below the critical support level of $89,000-$91,000, VeChain is likely to extend its losses, with prices potentially declining another 10% to $0.0400. A sustained drop in BTC could push VET even lower, towards $0.0300. Conversely, a strong rebound in BTC prices to the $100,000 level could drive VET back up to $0.0500, representing a recovery of approximately 12% from current levels.
The very first slice of statistical data on business activity from the United States this year reaffirmed an almost clear irrelevance and even potential hurtfulness of any immediate steps towards further lowering interest rates on U.S. Dollar-nominated loans from a purely economic point of view. The ISM Manufacturing PMI (Purchasing Managers Index), based on polls compiled from executives in over 400 industrial companies in late December, came out at 49.3 points vs 48.4 a month ago and 48.2 in average analyst estimates. This showed that a slowdown was occurring at a slower or even insignificant pace, keeping inflation risks on the table, especially when the price component increased from 50.3 to 52.5 with a similar rate of increase in new orders. Meanwhile, non-manufacturing PMI came out at 54.1 on Tuesday, compared to 53.5 in analyst polls and 52.1 a month ago, with a contribution of business activity components even jumped to a surprising 58.2 against declining from 57.2 in November to only 53.7 in December.
In other words, the economy is not cooling, and is rather in a positive acceleration, which in turn may lead to a recovery in wage rises and therefore to higher demand pressure, which may be reflected soon in higher producer purchase and output prices. Doubts of the major U.S. financial regulator are understandable at this point after its triple rate cut from 5.5% to 4.5% in 2024. The Federal Reserve (Fed) will now pay closer attention not only to consumer inflation measures, but also to producer prices (PPI), which is just going to be released on coming Tuesday, January 14. And so, this will become the next reference point in the further U.S. Dollar’s trajectory. The Greenback index (DX) is picking up steam since reaching a new record high for the last two years at 109.35, with its temporary pullbacks being limited by a 107.50 support area that previously served as a strong multi-month technical resistance.
In this context, the British Pound (GBPUSD) updated its lows since November 2023 to touch 1.2237 on January 9, EURUSD feels quite comfortable within a range between 1.02 and 1.0450, which corresponds to its 2-year bottom, and having a bias towards a possible further decline. The Aussie (AUDUSD) is one-step away from taking the path for a breakthrough to a quite unknown territory of its 5-year lows that were last time recorded when the initial outbreak of the Covid-19 happened.
A varying extent of the American Dollar strength is surely data dependent as the market community is eagerly waiting for the U.S. job data later today. The average expectations on new Nonfarm Payrolls is just a bit above 150,000 vs 227,000 in early December 2024 and nearly 160,000 for the previous four months on average. However, any value close to 150,000, plus or minus 20,000, or any higher number, may be considered as another positive sign for the Greenback, following the ADP national employment report which contained only 122,000 on Wednesday. The oppressive nature of average hourly wage in its dynamics, +0.4% each time from September to December, also matters.
The protective quality of investing more funds into the U.S. Dollar and U.S. bonds against tariff threats is switched on anyway, based on more than a 95% chance for the Fed to keep rates on pause at its January 29 meeting, according to CME's FedWatch tool. Federal Reserve officials never go against a well-established market consensus, when it is almost unanimous, for not to rock the boat of relative market trend stability. The central bankers' reluctance to shift the Fed fund rates lower before mid-March, if not early May, continues to play in favour of short-term speculative transactions on the foreign exchange market, bearing in mind all the listed currency instruments. Some intraday volatility may take place, especially in the case of appearing an abnormal two-digit non-farm value, but not a change in overall direction.
Spotify Technology has doubled its market value year-to-date when it managed to equal the record set of early 2021 at nearly $390 per share last week. Investor confidence is strong concerning the platform that revolutionized streaming services of music listening. Now more than 626 million users, including 246 million subscribers across 184 countries, are enjoying over 100 million tracks, 6 million podcasts titles and more than 350,000 audiobooks. The next portion of quarterly results will be provided by Spotify only in six weeks, on November 12, 2024, which gives the market audience additional time to choose the proper entry point for fresh Buy positioning.
The three-hour-long outage on the weekend, which reportedly affected about 40,000 users in the United States, encouraged a limited market retracement. Many users could not stream anything except recently played songs while their saved playlists did not load or music randomly stopped playing for a while. The drawdown in the market price totalled within 5% so far, yet it may expand due to some profit taking from many months of the rally. Downdetector.com used to track outages through a wide range of sources like user reports, and it reported less than 600 users were still having issues this Monday morning. "Everything's looking much better now!" Spotify representatives commented on X, formerly Twitter.
Apparently, troubles are short-lived, having a beginning and an end. Meanwhile, analyst were readily raising their mid-term price targets for the stock. A reputable investment banking and capital markets firm, Jefferies, recently put its ambition level on Spotify stock to $445, up from the previous $420. This implies a premium of around 21% to the current price. On September 25, 2024, Jefferies mentioned that Spotify's value proposition is underscored by its competitive pricing, compared to YouTube Premium, with a solid gap of over 15% in key markets to drive consumers to choose Spotify's "superior music-only offering". Universal Music Group sees a "next phase total addressable market (TAM)" of about 220 million subscribers, while watching 65% of potentially new subscribers in developing regions. Feeling the outcome of the battle for market share inside the music industry could rather be in favour of Spotify, Canadian Pivotal Research evaluation service even upgraded its price target to $510.
One way or another, most large analytical groups on Wall Street still maintain a Buy rating for Spotify. Last quarter, the company reported a 21% growth YoY in premium revenue, with the number of additional monthly active users of 14 million. Spotify's management forecasted its revenue may rise to €15.85 billion for the whole year of 2024 to reach €18.0 billion in 2025. Wall Street's pool of analysts gave an average estimate for Q3 EPS at $1.78 on revenue above $4 billion vs $1.33 per share on revenue of $3.81 billion. A good fundamental for further price growth. From our point of view, the price may fall below $350 by inertia, considering the retracement mood for Spotify, but then it will try to go above $400 once again.
Ethereum (ETH) could be set for a robust rally in October, a historically favorable month for the crypto market. If trends persist, ETH may outperform Bitcoin (BTC), which has averaged gains of 27.5% in the last four Octobers. This could lift ETH to $3,300-3,400. Additionally, ETH has underperformed by 15% since the Bitcoin halving in April, suggesting that if it catches up, prices could surge 45-50%, potentially reaching $3,900-4,000.
Looking further ahead, the U.S. presidential election could be a major factor for ETH. A victory by Donald Trump might fuel a further rally, pushing prices to $4,500-5,000. Conversely, if Kamala Harris wins, market sentiment toward crypto could sour, leading to a 20-30% decline in ETH prices.
Basic Attention Token (BAT) is seeing a modest rise of 6.5% to $0.1950 this week, lagging behind most of other altcoins. Bitcoin (BTC) has added 4.5% to $65,500. BAT’s performance may be hindered by strong resistance at the $0.2000 level. However, the broader market's positive momentum, combined with October historically being a strong month for the crypto market, suggests BAT could still have upside potential.
If BAT can break through this resistance, the token may rally towards $0.2500, representing a possible 28% increase from current levels. Given the overall market sentiment, a breakthrough could trigger a stronger performance.
Shares of Southwest Airlines have been able to keep only 5% gains on the closing price from their initial double-digit percentage jump in the first few minutes after the opening bell on Thursday. The bullish market response followed an announcement on turning around the carrier's suffering business strategy. Attractive vacation packages for passengers and sale-leaseback deals for planes were listed among priority steps. Southwest management noted that the measures are going to bring nearly $4 billion of earnings before interest and taxes in three years, additionally giving a 10% operating margin, 15% payback on an invested capital unit and at least $1 billion in free cash flow.
The Texas-based airline heavyweight wasted 32.5% of its market cap in five months from early March to early August, as its business underperformed, reportedly due to managing demand troubles across booking curves, as the company reserved too many seats for the peak travel season. Southwest fleet's current capacity surpassed demand, so that the major parameter of revenue per available seat mile (RASM) lost 3.8% in Q2. Besides, the U.S. government penalized Southwest in December 2023 by $140 million for numerous violations of consumer protection laws during a set of operational failures which led to cancellation of nearly 17,000 flights in 2022. Now Southwest is planning to meet challenges in several ways, including warnings for its employees of "difficult decisions" ahead to cut costs, creating new premium seats with assigned extra-legroom space by reducing seat pitch on over half of its planes, some route changing with starting overnight flights and launching a partnership with Icelandair for transatlantic connectivity. The carrier also revealed its $2.5 billion share buyback program.
These measures are still criticized by activist investor Elliott Management, who wants a shakeup of top management, when saying the plans are "filled with long-dated promises of better performance" but called for "credible leadership", now representing "another promise of a better tomorrow from the same people who have created the problems we face today". This is probably why the positive market dynamics stopped literally in the middle of the road to the upside. However, a further march forward from the current $30 to $35 per share looks realistic against these cramped conditions. A common rise in labour and airport costs still pressures the whole market segment. But other U.S. top carriers are clearly returning to their former splendour.
Delta (DAL) is coming so close to its pre-pandemic peaks, quickly adding another 6% on its weaker Southwest rival's progress, repeatedly touching its major resistance area well above $50 per share, as its all-time highs were located around $60 in 2019-2020. Citigroup reaffirmed its Buy rating on Delta stock, targeting at $65 and raising its forecast for the nearest quarterly earnings per share (EPS) from $1.37 to $1.51 and its full-year estimate for Delta's EPS to $6.05 from $5.98 in 2024, plus betting on $7.19 and $8.42 for the next couple of years. City sees a reduction in non-operating expenses and possible improvements in costs per available seat mile excluding fuel, which could be a good sign for resuming the broader airline stocks' rally before Christmas with traditionally increased activity of vacation flights.
Meanwhile, United Airlines (UAL) stock is soaring to its new three-year high at $58.85, after a 8.75% one-off jump the same day on September 26. A couple of weeks ago, United Airlines said it was ready to offer free Starlink Wi-Fi by SpaceX satellites on flights. The service will start later this year, and then the entire fleet of over 1,000 planes used by United Airlines will be equipped with the technology in the coming years. Climbing higher to approach the price range from $65 to $70 may be attempted.
Record-breaking summer travel numbers in North America may be expanded to cover this autumn and winter season as well, which may support the upward rally for various airline operators to repeat last year's bullish wave which was a memorable feature in the same period of 2023.
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