Investing
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China’s President Xi and America’s President Trump held a phone call to discuss trade matters this morning.
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Brown-Forman, an alcohol maker whose products may be targeted by other countries’ retaliatory tariffs, missed earnings this morning.
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The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) opened higher Thursday morning after China’s Xinhua reported that President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping held a call this morning to discuss the trade impasse. There’s no details yet on what they talked about, or on whether they reached any solutions to their respective nations’ complaints about alleged violations of a trade agreement reached in Geneva, Switzerland on May 10.
But investors seem optimistic just knowing that talks have resumed.
In other good news/bad news, the U.S. Department of Labor reports that unemployment claims in the week ending May 31 were up 8,000 sequentially to 247,000, and above expectations. That sounds like bad news, but bad news increases the chance the Fed will lower interest rates this year — and for stock market investors, that sounds like good news, and one more reason to buy the Voo.
The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF is currently up 0.1%.
Earnings
S&P 500 component company Brown-Forman (NYSE: BF.B) reported an earnings miss this morning. $0.31 per share in Q1 earnings came in three cents below expectations, and the liquor company’s $894 million in sales were well below the $968 million expected.
Satellite company Planet Labs (NYSE: PL) managed to beat expectations however, reporting breakeven profits where analysts had forecast a $0.03 per share loss for fiscal Q1 2026. Revenue for the quarter was $66.3 million, also ahead of expectations.
Analyst Calls
Japan’s Mizuho upgraded S&P 500 component company Visa (NYSE: V) to buy with a $425 price target this morning. “We see more reason for optimism as the remaining cash-to-card runway in the US is longer than previously expected,” said the analyst. “This leaves room for another decade of solid top-line growth domestically.”
Austrian bank Erste Group upgraded S&P 500 component company Intuitive Surgical (Nasdaq: ISRG) to buy, arguing “profit growth will be lower this year due to the introduction of tariffs on products that the Group mainly produces in Mexico. However, the operating margin should rise again in 2026 and profit growth should also increase significantly.”
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