It was a bumpy session in the stock market today. Bulls have taken the S&P 500 up considerably from the March lows, with the index rallying almost 30%.
That said, we’re approaching earnings season. Given the incredibly high number of uncertainties currently present, it puts the stock market in a potentially vulnerable position. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) will kick off the earnings season by reporting on Tuesday before the open.
Names in the Spotlight
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is struggling to keep up with increasing demand during this time and stated it’s going to hire another 75,000 employees. That’s on top of the 100,000 employees Amazon said it would hire last month. The company now plans on spending $500 million on wage increases, up from $350 million earlier.
Disney’s (NYSE:DIS) Bob Iger recently stepped down as CEO and became executive chairman. However, he certainly didn’t expect his road to retirement to go quite like this.
With Disney losing around $30 million a day due to the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Iger had almost no choice but to step back into a bigger role in order to navigate the company through this tough time. Disney is uniquely positioned in a way that it’s suffering immensely from the virus, with its parks, cruises and sports networks under significant pressure.
On the plus side, the company has already hit 50 million subscribers for its Disney+ streaming platform.
Movers in the Stock Market Today
Due to a deteriorating stock price, Aurora Cannabis (NYSE:ACB) now plans to do a 1-to-12 reverse stock split. It’s being done in an effort to elevate its stock price and stay compliant with the New York Stock Exchange. Further, Aurora plans to raise equity capital after filing a new prospectus. The split will go into effect starting May 11.
Ford (NYSE:F) updated investors on its first-quarter results and now expects a $600 million EBIT loss. Further, management is calling for revenue of roughly $34 billion against analysts’ estimates of $37.2 billion. Ford is already taking steps to preserve cash, but still has no official reopen date for its U.S. manufacturing plants.
It’s no surprise that airlines are taking a huge hit right now. Some airlines are contemplating selling miles for cash, a strategy companies have used in the past. In hopes to soften the financial blow, Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) and United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) are two companies considering this idea. Credit card partners JPMorgan Chase and American Express (NYSE:AXP) would buy miles at a discounted price for cash, and use them for future customer rewards and bonuses.
As the coronavirus continues to spread, Carnival Cruise (NYSE:CCL) is canceling even more cruises in North America. It’s keeping its North American cruises docked until at least June 27. However, its Carnival Sunrise unit is cancelling all cruises out of New York for the rest of the year.
Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell is long DIS.