Weekly Insights

Wednesday, May 29, 2024

1. After spending the last decade transforming itself, retailer Abercrombie & Fitch announced this morning its strongest quarterly earnings in the history of the company. Shares surged 22% to an all-time high. Shares of ANF are up more than 100% year-to-date.

2. According to U.S. patent data, the most innovative company for 2023 was International Business Machine (Symbol: IBM). IBM was granted 3,953 patents last year, more than any other company, and 1,591 of those patents were linked to artificial intelligence (AI). Rounding out the top five were Qualcomm, Google, Apple and Micron Technologies.

3. CNBC announced New York is still the richest city in the world. Despite wealth flight over the past few years, New York City boasts the most millionaires at 359,500, along with 60 billionaires. The San Francisco Bay Area is the second richest area, with 68 billionaires and 305,000 millionaires. The U.S. has 11 out of the 50 richest cities in the world.

4. It may be the best time to buy a new vehicle in four years. Dealerships nationwide are sitting on the highest inventory since 2020, and 2023 models on dealer lots are up 7% from one year ago. Due to higher prices of new vehicles, the average age of cars on the road in the U.S. is 12.6 years, the oldest on record.

5. Last Friday, the NASDAQ composite index closed at a record high of 17,019. Comparing apples to apples valuations, the NASDAQ would have to be at 51,057 to have the same earnings multiple it did at the end of 1999.