Wall Street Today: Citi's Levkovich is bearish on stocks, but likes cyclicals

Citi's Levkovich is still bearish on stocks, but likes cyclicals

$Citigroup (C.US)$'s Tobias Levkovich is known as a bear in these heady times for U.S. equities, anticipating a 10% slide for the S&P 500 by yearend -- with the decline starting as early as next month. But he still favors some stocks.

"We do like capital goods, we do like consumer discretionary, but very specifically within retailing consumer services. We're not chasing consumer durables, we're not chasing autos," Citigroup's chief U.S. equity strategist said in an interview on Bloomberg TV's Surveillance on Wednesday. "And then we like financials. We like banks, we like insurance. Those are more value, cyclical-oriented groups."

Uber ridership rebounds from pandemic lows

$Uber Technologies (UBER.US)$'s ridership rebounded strongly in the most recent quarter from last year's pandemic lows, but a continuing driver shortage and uncertainty about how will affect consumer behavior pushed its shares lower.

Uber's rides business is profitable, but its bottom line is dragged down by its capital-intensive food-delivery business. The company said it sees its loss by that measure narrowing to less than $100 million in the current quarter, and that it remains on track to post a profit by that measure by the fourth quarter.

Auto makers aim to boost EV sales to 40%-50% of U.S. sales by 2030

Auto makers including $General Motors (GM.US)$, $Ford Motor (F.US)$and Jeep maker $Stellantis NV (STLA.US)$will aim to make electric vehicles account for 40% to 50% of their U.S. sales by 2030, according to people familiar with the matter, who said the targets would be announced at the White House on Thursday.

Other auto makers are expected to separately make similar announcements regarding sales targets for electric vehicles as consumers begin warming to EVs and as auto manufacturers lay heavy bets on the new technology, the people said.

Roku stock sinks after reporting tight hardware margins, dramatic fall in streaming viewership

$Roku Inc (ROKU.US)$shares fell more than 8% in after-hours trading Wednesday after reporting second-quarter earnings that beat expectations but showed a slowdown in streaming TV viewing since last quarter and tight hardware margins.

The company said streaming hours decreased by 1 billion hours from the first quarter of 2021, totaling 17.4 billion in the second quarter. The company cited consumers seeking more out-of-home entertainment activities like dining and travel in the second quarter because of pent-up demand and the loosening of Covid-19 restrictions. But Roku's streaming hours were still up 19% globally year-over-year, the company said.

Fastly stock plummets after major outage dragged down Q2 revenue

Shares of $Fastly (FSLY.US)$fell as much as 19% in extended trading on Wednesday after the content-delivery network provider lower revenue than expected following an outage and called for deeper losses than analysts had predicted for the coming quarters.

"We expect to see a downstream impact on revenue from the outage in the near-to medium-term as we work with our customers to bring back their traffic to normal levels," Fastly CEO Joshua Bixby wrote in a letter to shareholders. One of Fastly's top 10 customers has not returned its traffic to the company's infrastructure, he wrote.

Fed officials sketch out conditions for scaling back monetary support

Top officials at the Federal Reserve have begun to sketch out in more detail the path towards the eventual withdrawal of monetary policy support, citing the strength of the economic recovery despite a resurgence of Covid-19 infections.

Richard Clarida, vice-chair of the US central bank, on Wednesday laid the foundation for the scaling back of the Fed's $120bn asset purchase programme and an interest rate increase in 2023, which would be its first since slashing rates to zero at the onset of the pandemic.

Electronic Arts rallies after beating views, raising outlook
$Electronic Arts Inc (EA.US)$, maker of the Battlefield video games, rose in extended trading after reporting better-than-expected first-quarter results, buoyed by product launches and live services, and raising its outlook.

First-quarter adjusted revenue totaled $1.34 billion, the company Wednesday, beating estimates of $1.29 billion. Profit, excluding some items, came to 79 cents in the period ended June 30, exceeding projections of 62 cents.

Source: Bloomberg, Dow Jones, CNBC, Financial Times