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16.01.2025

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.

23.01.2025

Ontology Is Sliding Towards $0.2000

Ontology (ONT) is down 2.3% this week, trading at $0.2176, in line with the broader crypto market where Bitcoin (BTC) has declined 2.0% to $101,632. While the new U.S. administration has made some strides toward fairer crypto regulation, Donald Trump has remained silent on the highly anticipated issue of adding Bitcoin to U.S. federal reserves.

Market speculation is rampant, with figures like BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggesting Bitcoin could surge to $700,000 per coin if sovereign wealth funds begin accumulating. Other forecasts predict Bitcoin reaching $250,000 by year-end. While such projections could foster optimism, the lack of decisive action or announcements regarding U.S. crypto reserves is weighing heavily on the market.

For Ontology, the situation remains bearish. Having breached the critical support at $0.2500 last week, the token is now approaching the $0.2000 level. A failure to provide clear evidence or statements about U.S. federal crypto reserve plans could see ONT fall even further, breaching the $0.2000 mark and deepening its losses.

14.01.2025

Merck Becomes Interesting to Be Added to a Portfolio

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.

09.01.2025

VeChain Is Suffering on Rising Borrowing Costs

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.

14.01.2025

Tezos Is Seen Hodling above $1.200

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.

MetadoroIn-house analytics

14.07.2022

How Apple is Affecting Qualcomm?

Qualcomm stock prices are highly dependent on the success of Apple’s development of its 5G modems for the Iphone division. This division was recently acquired by Apple from Intel in order to dump chip supplies from Qualcomm that has the monopoly of this type of chip manufacturing. The U.S. Supreme Court gas finally declined Apples bid to continue fighting over two related Qualcomm patents. Qualcomm has estimated that a positive effect will come from an additional $2 of EPS from this trial as the company would receive royalties from Apple even if its smartphones and computers would be equipped only with their own chips. Thus, the decision of Apple to replace Qualcomm CPU chips in Macbooks with their own came as a surprise because Apple would have to pay royalties anyway.

The leading role of Qualcomm in 5G chip manufacturing secures stable cash flows, while Apple is rumored to be failing to create an appropriate replacement for third-party chips, leaving Qualcomm an exclusive chip maker for new Iphone models. Apple forecasted that it would acquire 20% of third-party 5G chips, but now it seems this figure would be close to 100%.

Qualcomm is also benefiting from electric vehicles and self-driving vehicles, as producers secured $16 billion from digital devices that are planned to be produced. According to the company’s management it will boost this business revenue to $3.5 billion a year in the 2024-2026 period. QCOM shares are traded 30% off its peak values with P/E ratio at 9. This ratio is seen to be underestimated as Qualcomm is likely to lower its dependence from Apple as its major client is considering significant progress in many other company divisions, including IoT.

The mid-term target price for QCOM shares is at $150.

QCOM

3610

MetadoroIn-house analytics

07.07.2022

An Undeserved Penalty for AMD

AMD stocks have lost 50% since January 2022 despite elevated demand for semiconductors from data centers and the car manufacturing industry. The major concern of investors was prompted by a statement by the company’s rival Intel that the demand for personal computers is contracting. Intel has lower prices than Alder Lake processors and suspended any recruitments for its production facilities. The company has stopped the construction of new factories as U.S. Congress voted against contributing to the project’s finances. The U.S. Administration had planned to co-fund the project by putting in 30% of $10 billion needed for this project.

How will all this affect AMD? It won’t in anyway. The company continues to hire new employees, and its major market is not personal computers but expensive server equipment. This segment was mostly unaffected by the COVID pandemic. The company had a share of 9% in the segment before the pandemic and it has been increased to 12% in 2022. AMD also increased its share in the smartphone segment to 23% compared to 18% a year ago.

AMD

3962

MetadoroIn-house analytics

07.07.2022

An Undeserved Penalty for Meta

Meta shares (Facebook platform owner) has lost 50% since the beginning of 2022. Facebook and Instagram have dominated the social media industry for a long time with a minor contribution from the Snapchat that was populated mostly by teenagers. A dramatic change came when TikTok emerged - a rapidly expanding short video social media platform. The launch of Instagram Reels and efforts by the U.S. Administration to crack down on TikTok within the U.S. territory were not quite successful in discouraging new Chinese social media expansion. Nevertheless, it is too early for Facebook to be dismissed.

The adult audience spends 38 minutes a day on TikTok, while Facebook and Instagram have these reading at 31 and 30 minutes respectively. The Meta platform is still popular for communication purposes and for posting photos, but not so popular for video content as people prefer to consume videos on other social media platforms. Meanwhile, video content is very important in terms of audience retention. Meta Platform’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that people spend over 50% of their time on Facebook using Reels while only 20% of their time is spent on Instagram. New Meta efforts to introduce artificial intelligence algorithms to increase audience involvement in video content may increase Meta revenues even if the platform’s numbers do lack behind that of TikTok. TikTok had one billion active users a month in 2021 with a revenue of $20 billion. Reels have 1.3 billion active users while revenue from reels was recorded at $1.2 billion. Increasing monetization and audience engagement may boost revenues up to $5.6 billion in 2022.

Meta is also likely to decrease financing of it Metaverse as the Reality labs division posted $3 billion losses during the first three months of 2022. The decrease of spending and rising Reels revenues will upgrade price targets for META stocks for the mid-term.