The Wedbush Week Ahead
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Wedbush Equity Research August 10, 2018 The Wedbush Week Ahead Week of August 13, 2018 Analysts Jesse Bigelow, Director of Research 212-259-6581 Weekly Economic Calendar [email protected] as Monday – No Notable Events Tuesday – NFIB Small Biz Optimism Index, Import/Export Prices, Redbook Wednesday – MBA Mortgage Apps, Retail Sales, Empire State Mfg Survey, Productivity and Costs, Industrial Production, Atlanta Fed, Biz Inventories, Housing Mkt Index, Treasury Intl Capital Thursday – Housing Starts, Jobless Claims, Philadelphia Fed Numbers Friday – Consumer Sentiment, E-Commerce Retail Sales, Leading Indicators as Events in focus for next week as Ticker Date Action Item Read AAP Tuesday Comp/EPS Positive JWN Thursday Gross Margin Positive DDS Expected Next Week Gross Margin/EPS Positive ... Source: Wedbush Securities as Consumer as Within consumer, the focus remains on discretionary vs staples, as the XLY discretionary ETF has been outperforming the XLP staples ETF on a month-to-date basis. Risk-on sentiment within the broader markets continues to drive upside in discretionary shares with the S&P 500 within reach of all-time highs. Retail earnings will be the primary driver of price action in the week ahead. Consumer Data Analytics: JWN is set to report on Thursday, where we see upside into Q2 after Nordstrom’s recent investor day, which tapered high Street expectation. Intelligence from our Wedbush Big Data product, our proprietary eCommerce model, yields a positive data signal and forecasts upside to gross margin. Although unconfirmed by management, we expect OP-rated DDS and to also report next week. We are positive going into the quarter, with intelligence from our Wedbush Big Data product forecasting large upside to gross margin. It is our view that the combination of a beat on gross margin in Q2, coupled with heavy short interest will result in strong upside to the stock price from its current discount. Wedbush Securities does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. Thus, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision. Please see pages 7–10 of this report for analyst certification and important disclosure information. www.wedbush.com Page 1 Footwear & Apparel: Join Wedbush at our 2018 Footwear & Apparel Summit on Thursday, August 16th in New York City for intimate 1x1 meetings with management teams from Asics, Deckers (DECK), Nike (NKE), Steve Madden (SHOO), SportsOneSource, and Wolverine World Wide (WWW). To sign up for the conference, click here. Hardlines: HD reports on Tuesday before market open and we see risk as balanced. While most home improvement retail sales leading indicators appear favorable for the quarter itself, and the companies should benefit from pent-up demand in the late-breaking spring, we see macro risks building. The biggest inflection in Q2 category sales is in major appliances, with wholesale shipments declining -5% y/y in 2Q vs. a +5% increase in Q1. All in, we are comfortable with our HD comp estimate of +7.0%, about in line with buyside expectations and near consensus +6.6% due to strong execution and pent-up demand capture. Additionally, AAP is reporting Tuesday before market open. We are favorable into the print, and while buyside comp expectations have risen in recent weeks to +0.5% to +1.0%, we see strong potential for AAP to at least meet these expectations as the company benefits from stable field operations, the completed roll out of cross-banner availability in February, inflation and favorable weather. Looking forward, we believe Q3 is off to a solid start and we expect positive comps for 2H, with more upside than downside risk from these same drivers and an incremental benefit from transferred sales as a result of store closures. While an increase to 2018 comp and margin guidance is not likely required to support shares, it could serve as a positive catalyst along. Homebuilders and Building Products: The ITB Home Construction ETF continues to churn near the lower end of YTD range. In the week ahead, the focus will be macro data points with Housing Market Index on Wednesday and Housing Starts on Thursday. asd FIG asd We anticipate a slow August week for bank stocks with the main highlight the release of Fed H.8 data after the close Friday. C&I loan growth has moderated over the last two weeks, according to the H.8 data. While we are not raising a red flag, it is worth highlighting given a noticeable positive change in tone from management teams during 2Q earnings conference calls related to loan growth. In addition, period-end loan balances exceeded average balances by the highest amount in several quarters. Separately, short term rates including 1-month and 3-month LIBOR are little changed QTD from June 30th, down 2 bp and up 1 bp, respectively, which could limit anticipated margin expansion for the banks if these rates do not move up as the quarter progresses. While we are modeling for a moderation in NIM expansion in coming quarters, we would be inclined to adjust our NIM forecasts lower if short rates stay at current levels, as the majority of floating rate loans held by banks price off of these LIBOR rates. as Healthcare as We are not seeing the normal seasonal weakness this year, as strength within HC continues with 2Q earnings releases meeting investor expectations. This week has been tilted towards more SMID- cap earnings, with much of the large-cap prints now behind us. Pharma has been impressive as the drug pricing narrative looks to be exhausted. Managed care strength has been remarkable with WCG closing well above the secondary offering price and CI not noticeably affected by Icahn’s involvement. Small and mid-cap biotech volatility remains heightened, as pipeline updates come with 2Q earnings releases. Investors have not been kind to those who are pushing dates out. Flows on the desk have been slightly better to buy, with money coming into SMID-cap biotech (later stage assets) from the Long Only community and dedicated investors de-risking and adjusting portfolios. We saw some slight shifts in the hemophilia A gene therapy landscape, as preliminary Phase 1/2 data for SGMO’s hemophilia A gene therapy (SB-525) provided initial clinical proof-of-concept for the company’s ZFN platform. We await a more detailed presentation at ASH in December to see www.wedbush.com Page 2 how its profile may stack up against competitors. In our view, BMRN’s hemA candidate (BMN-270) is still the leader in this space due to stellar efficacy and developmental maturity, especially in light of recent underwhelming results from ONCE. In the coming week we host our annual 2-day conference in NY Tuesday and Wednesday, with over 75 companies presenting ( Click here to register). For many recent new issues, including AvroBio ( AVRO ), Kiniksa ( KNSA), Magenta ( MGTA ), Scholar Rock (SRRK) and Unum (UMRX), this will be their first investor conference as public companies. We also expect the conference to be highly impactful for some of the less followed names under coverage like Fennec (FENC) and Merus (MRUS). Mersana (MRSN) will also be presenting and holding its second quarter earnings call on Aug 15 where we look for updates regarding the partial hold on XMT-1522. as TMT as Technology momentum continued this week with strong earnings triggering yet another furious rally across higher beta, growth pocket of the sector (SMID-Cap Internets, Cloud/SaaS, Disruptive Tech – i.e. CVNA, ROKU). Semis lagged on renewed peak cyclical concerns / negative sell-side commentary, which exaggerated some of the moves seen across the Software Complex. Large cap leadership is showing no signs of fading from the likes of AAPL, AMZN, MSFT and GOOGL. Videogame publisher sentiment has taken somewhat of a hit but there remains a long bias and we have seen dedicated tech funds adding on recent pullbacks, while Fortnite impacting engagement trends remain a concern from the generalist community. Within FinTech, WP (Wedbush Best Ideas List) broke out post a solid print showing accelerating growth drawing the attention of momentum investors. Shorts remain concentrated across legacy tech, hardware and memory. We saw a media short squeeze, driven by better than expected numbers in general, although DIS disappointed. With EPS season winding down it leaves little to get excited about in coming weeks, thus the path of least resistance remains higher for the sector. www.wedbush.com Page 3 UPCOMING EVENTS CONFERENCES Date Event City August 14-15, 2018 2018 Wedbush PacGrow Healthcare Conference New York 16-Aug-18 2018 Footwear & Apparel Summit New York 14-Nov-18 2018 Midwest Bank Forum Chicago CONFERENCE CALLS Date Event Time 16-Aug-18 Video Game Sales Recap | ATVI, EA, GME, NTDOY, TTWO, UBI 5:30 ET Wedbush Host: Michael Pachter, Digital Media Yield Curve's Recession Predictability | CMA, RF, CFG, NYCB, SIVB, 5-Sep-18 10:00 ET EWBC, SBNY, ZION Advisor Call with Jim O'Sullivan, Economist at High Frequency Economics Wedbush Hosts: Peter Winter, Regional Banks and David Chiaverini, Mid-Cap Banks EVENTS Date Event Time 12-Sep-18 Rapid Growth of Esports | ATVI, EA, NTDOY, TTWO, UBI New York Advisor lunch with Tobias Sherman, CEO and Co-Founder of Foundry IV Wedbush Host: Michael Pachter, Digital Media 13-Sep-18 Rapid Growth of Esports | ATVI, EA, NTDOY, TTWO, UBI Boston Advisor lunch with Tobias Sherman, CEO and Co-Founder of Foundry IV Wedbush Host: Michael Pachter, Digital Media NON-DEAL ROADSHOWS Date Event City 13-Aug-18 Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Inc.