On Friday, Seagate  reported fiscal-second-quarter earnings and revenue that surpassed analysts' expectations.

For the quarter ended Jan. 1, the data storage company’s adjusted earnings came in at $1.29 a share, compared to the $1.13 expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue fell -2.7% year-over-year to $2.62 billion, also exceeding analysts’ forecast of $2.56 billion.

"Seagate delivered strong, double-digit revenue, earnings and free cash flow growth in the December quarter, supported by broad-based improvement across nearly every served market and geography, and we had solid customer demand for our mass capacity products," Chief Executive Dave Mosley mentioned in a statement.

On Friday, Oracle  got a sell rating from Goldman Sachs, as the bank initiated coverage of 12 software companies.

Goldman Sachs said, “when we asked CIOs which vendors will gain or lose share in DX [digital experience] budgets, amongst all vendors, ORCL did not perform well,”.

According to the Goldman Sachs analysts, Oracle had a “net strength of negative 39%, defined as the percentage gaining share less the percentage losing share.”

They also mentioned that for several years  Oracle has focused on organic development, and that it did not  make any major acquisitions.The net result of this strategy, according to Goldman Sachs analysts,  has been a “steady deceleration” in revenue growth from 4% in FY14-15 to 0.3% in FY20.

They think  that Microsoft is well positioned to double its $60 billion-plus commercial cloud business (Azure, Office 365, Dynamics, and LinkedIn Commercial) into a $120 billion to $140 billion business in the longer term.Microsoft’s installed base of on-premise Windows servers alone represents $80 billion to $90 billion in potential Azure business, according to the analysts’ thesis.

Volkswagen learned their lesson the hard way last year, as it rolled out its flagship EV called the ID.3.The learning curve for updating software remotely is higher than Volkswagen anticipated, and now any notion of overtaking Tesla has been pushed out for years. 

German automakers are resilient, however, and they have quickly identified problems in workflow, management, and depth of human capital needed to make the ID.3 competitive.

The wall of liquidity building up in the capital markets—due to direct payments from the federal government and hyper-accommodative monetary policy at the Fed—has led to M2 money supply rising at an unprecedented 25% year-over-year rate.

According to a new Boston College study, 51% of U.S. households are at risk of not being able to meet their standard of living in retirement.In other words, people half of the population is set to have to make sacrifices in their twilight years -- the opposite of which should be true. 

The figures keep getting worse.

Investors have been bullish on copper of late, and signs are pointing to more bullishness ahead.

Copper is trading near its highest levels since 2013, as investors anticipate an economic rebound led by China and the U.S. throughout 2021.As the economic recovery gains momentum when the pandemic risk fades, copper could be a commodity whose price is very sensitive to upticks in growth. 

Companies like Freeport McMoRan, which specialize in mining precious metals like copper, have also seen strong upside.

Tesla says it wants to increase vehicle from about 500,000 per year today to over 20 million annually by 2030.These are ambitious growth targets, but investors need to ask two questions:

1. Can Tesla maintain its market share with more competitors rolling out new products?
2. Is Tesla's future growth already priced into its current stock price?

Tickeron's A.I.

I'm a fan of big banks in 2021, and Goldman Sachs is near the top of the list.In Q4, the investment banking giant demonstrated how strong its operations and earnings-generating businesses are.

Thanks to the selling, Tickeron’s AI Trend Prediction tool generated bullish signals on Twitter and two other internet companies on January 19.The bullish predictions all three showed a confidence level of 88% for the stocks to move higher by at least 4% over the next month.

None of the three stocks do very well on the fundamentals with Farfetch and Snap both getting five negative ratings and no positive ratings.

Retail investing company Charles Schwab posted fourth quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations.This is Schwab’s first earnings report following its $26 billion acquisition of rival TD Ameritrade.

The company’s adjusted earnings came in at 74 cents per share, beating the  71 cents per share expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Revenue of $4.18 billion was also higher than the forecast $4.108 billon.

Total client assets for Schwab increased to a record $6.69 trillion as of the end of 2020, which reflects a 66% growth year-over-year – boosted by acquired TD Ameritrade assets.

Schwab added 15.77 million new clients in the fourth quarter, including 14.5 million new brokerage accounts from the TD Ameritrade merger.

The company’s daily average trades rose to 5.8 million in the fourth quarter, a record high.

Trading revenue surged +88% to $1.4 billion

Shares of Israeli cellphone communications equipment maker Ceragon Networks  got a double downgrade from analysts at Needham. 

Needham analysts lowered their rating on the shares to underperform from buy, amid valuation concerns.The analyst mentioned further that even a buyout would be unlikely to justify recent moves.

Ceragon  shares climbed more than +30% on Tuesday, and has more than doubled over the past three trading days.

Ceragon gained 33% on Tuesday as ARK Israel Innovative Technology ETF (IZRL) added 44,380 shares of Ceragon, bringing its total holdings to nearly 856,000 shares( according to Bloomberg).

Revenue increased to $1.36 billion from $1.28 billion.

According to the company, revenue growth was due to continued demand for personal protective equipment and sanitizer products to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic,  support resumption of manufacturing and construction activity, and support sales to new customers.

For the fourth quarter, Fastenal paid out its regular dividend of 25 cents a share plus a special dividend of 40 cents, with the latter reflecting "high cash balances and favorable financial outlook."

For the first quarter, Fastenal announced a dividend of 28 cents a share, payable March 3 to holders of record Feb. 3. 

The company now forecasts organic sales growth of 5% to 6% in fiscal 2021, up from its prior expectation of no more than 5%.It also raised its adjusted earnings forecast to 8% to 10%, up from the previous outlook of 5% to 8%.

P&G expects to buy back as much as $10 billion of its own stock during fiscal 2021, up from a prior estimate of $7 billion to $9 billion.

Shares of General Motors  climbed Tuesday, after software behemoth Microsoft  partnered with the car company's self-driving car startup Cruise .

Microsoft and GM are leading a $2 billion investment round in Cruise.The two companies aim to combine their software and hardware engineering capabilities , cloud-computing technologies and manufacturing knowledge in the self-driving-vehicle market. 

The additional funds will raise Cruise’s valuation to an estimated $30 billion, up from $19 billion when T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. invested in the company in 2019, Cruise said in a statement Monday.

"Our mission to bring safer, better and more affordable transportation to everyone isn't just a tech race – it's also a trust race," Cruise Chief Executive Dan Ammann said in a statement.

Virgin Galactic   shares rose on Tuesday, even after news of Abu Dhabi's sovereign-wealth fund reducing its holding in the space-tourism company and Susquehanna analysts downgrading the stock.

According to a regulatory filing, Mubadala Investment, Abu Dhabi's sovereign-wealth fund,  pared its stake in the company to 11.8 million shares ( 5.04%), from 14.9 million shares (7.08%).  But Mubadala remains Virgin's third largest shareholder, according to S&P Capital.

Virgin Galactic’s shares was downgraded to neutral from positive by Susquehanna analysts.Their price target on the shares $32 a share, indicating potential 5.2% downside from the shares' Friday closing price. 

Virgin announced in December that shareholders may sell up to nearly 113 million shares following the end of a lockup period. 

Shares of laser maker Coherent  jumped  on Tuesday, after Lumentum Holdings   agreed to acquire the company in a deal valued at $5.7 billion.

In a cash-and-stock deal, Coherent shareholders would  receive $100 per share in cash and 1.1851 shares of Lumentum common stock for each Coherent share they own, according to the the companies’ statement.The transaction deal implies a 49% premium to Coherent's closing price on Friday.

Oil companies, especially exploration companies, have rallied sharply since the end of October.The SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP) rallied 89.7% from the October low to last week’s high.

The analysts at  Bernstein are sanguine that revenue from Zoom Phone will contribute substantial returns in a shorter period than many investors expect.The firm expects that Zoom Phone could surpass 8 million paid users by the end of calendar year 2022, and 13 million by the end of 2023. 

Zoom Phone would have a market value of $80 billion by 2023, considering a multiple of 20 times price to sales – according to Bernstein.

Bernstein analyst Zane Chrane said that with all Zoom Phone users on paid plans (i.e., no free tier like with videoconferencing), related revenue could grow much more rapidly relative to the user count than has been the case with Zoom VC.

The analysts said that their upgrade is based on current macroeconomic conditions supportive of “elevated valuations for high growth stocks”.They also mentioned further upside potential for Snap due to e-commerce and small- and medium-sized business marketer tailwinds driving the broader online advertising sector.