HRB - Wall Street Breakfast Podcast: VivoPower Rises On Distribution Deal

2023-05-17 07:05:04 ET

Listen on the go! Subscribe to Wall Street Breakfast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Biden plans to cut Asia trip short to get back to debt ceiling talks (01:03). VivoPower ( VVPR ) skyrockets on distribution deal for EV chargers (01:49). Tesla ( TSLA ) meeting: Elon Musk talks rough economy , advertising and new models (06:34). Learn more about these stocks with Seeking Alpha Premium .

This is an abridged transcript of the podcast.

• A meeting on the debt ceiling. No deal but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said it is possible a deal could happen by the end of the week.

• Today is stock of the week Wednesday. We’re not talking about a specific stock but a sector…real estate. Eric Basmajian is the investing group leader of EPB Macro Research

• A Tesla meeting. Elon Musk talks about a rough economy, advertising and new models.

You can find links to all the stories we talk about on the show in show notes and our daily Seeking Alpha Wall Street Breakfast articles.

OUR TOP STORY

President Biden plans to cut short a trip to Asia this week to oversee debt ceiling talks with Republicans.

Following a meeting with the President on Tuesday afternoon, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said a deal to raise the debt ceiling is possible within days but added that Republicans and Democrats are still far apart.

The president will travel to Hiroshima, Japan, today for the G-7 meeting but will head back to Washington, D.C., on Sunday instead of his planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia.

The change in plans underscores the urgency in reaching a resolution on the federal debt limit with Republicans.

The debt ceiling impasse remains very much in focus and traders will no doubt be closely following the discussions.

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NOW OUR HEADLINE STORY

VivoPower International (NASDAQ: VVPR ) gained more than 30% in Tuesday's trading.

This was its highest in three months after saying it signed a definitive partnership agreement to market and distribute fleet charging technology globally.

U.K.-based Vital EV offers a range of electric vehicle charging solutions for fleet owners, and is the official re-seller of Kempower charging stations and service solutions in the U.K. and Africa.

Under the deal terms, VivoPower will be able to offer its customers and partners a wide range of EV fleet charging products and services from Vital EV and Kempower.

Ticker symbol VVPR has a note on the stock that says it is at high risk of performing badly. That note was placed there in April 2022.

It’s also important to note that the stock is down more than 10% premarket at 54 cents per share.

NOW MORE ON THE MARKET

U.S. stocks on Tuesday stumbled through a lackluster session.

The Nasdaq ( COMP.IND ) held onto slight gains through most of the day but ended up finishing in negative territory. It closed down 0.2%. The S&P 500 ( SP500 ) slipped 0.6%.

The Dow ( DJI ) retreated 1%. Home Depot ( HD ) weighed on the blue-chip index after it missed comparable sales estimates and provided light guidance.

Of the 11 S&P sectors, nine closed in the red, led by a more than 2.5% drop in Real Estate and Energy. Communication Services, and Tech were the two gainers.

Treasury yields were higher on Tuesday. The 10-year yield ( US10Y ) was up 3 basis points to 3.54% while the 2-year yield ( US2Y ) was up 7 basis points to 4.07%.

Gold futures on Tuesday settled below $2K/oz for the first time since May 1, marking its fourth loss in five sessions.

Now an update to a story we talked about Saturday on the catalyst watch podcast, retail sales. The economic calendar saw April retail sales coming in at +0.4%, which was below the expected figure of +0.7%. At the same time, sales excluding autos and gas came in at +0.6%. A category that stood out was grocery spending which saw a 0.4% decline.

There were a few Fed speakers on tap on Tuesday. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said that whether interest rates revert to the low level seen before the pandemic may partly be determined by whether productivity growth picks up. New York Fed President John Williams at an event said that inflation was moving in the right direction, but still remained "unacceptably" high.

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Today is stock of the week Wednesday.

Tuesday here on Wall Street Breakfast, I told you we’d be hearing from Eric Basmajian.

He’s the investing group leader of EPB Macro Research on Seeking Alpha.

Eric appeared on the investing experts podcast and he was asked about the state of real estate.

(04:57)

He says someone is holding those losses and for the time being it appears it's on the regional banks holding the asset.

Eric has written about this exact topic for Seeking Alpha. If you want to read his analysis I’ll leave a link to the article.

The best way to get the most out of any of these articles is to become a premium member. And it’s only 5 bucks for the first month.

MORE OF OUR TOP STORIES

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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA ) held its annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday in Austin, Texas.

Musk warned that Tesla ( TSLA ) is not immune to what could be a tough period for the economy and more pressure on consumer discretionary spending.

He also surprised with a tease that Tesla ( TSLA ) will try out media advertising and see how it goes in what will be a departure from the company's track record of non-traditional advertising.

The CEO also advised that Tesla ( TSLA ) will deliver its first Cybertrucks this year. The target is to deliver 250K to 500K Cybertrucks a year. The long-awaited return of the Roadster is expected in 2024. He also teased that plans are being made for two new electric vehicle models.

During the Q&A part of the event, Elon Musk was asked about the rumors he was considering stepping down from the CEO role of Tesla ( TSLA ).

He said, "It ain’t so.”

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ZoomInfo (NASDAQ: ZI ) rose 4.5% amid speculation the company may be an activist target after a 13F filing.

Morgan Stanley added shares of ZoomInfo ( ZI ) in Q1.

The purchases may be considered noteworthy as prime brokerage sometimes acts as counterparties for activist swap positions.

One article written just yesterday on Seeking Alpha is by Gary Alexander. It’s entitled, ZoomInfo: Too Expensive To Consider Now. He tells his 26K followers that ZI is a hold and that company growth is expected to slow down even further to the teens in the back half of this year.

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The Internal Revenue Service is officially planning to roll out a limited pilot program for a free tax filing system during next year's tax filing season.

This news sent shares of H&R Block (NYSE: HRB ), down 3.1%.

TurboTax owner Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU ), ended down 1.1%, extending their losses from the prior session.

Earlier, Bank of America said in a note that the paid and free filing offerings of TurboTax would not be materially impacted from a government-run tax preparation service.

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If you want more information about a topic we covered on today’s show. You can find links in show notes and our daily Seeking Alpha Wall Street Breakfast articles.

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Now let’s take a look at the markets as of 6:20 am. Ahead of the opening bell today, Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the green. The Dow is up 0.3%. The S&P 500 is up 0.3% and the Nasdaq is up 0.2%. Crude oil is up 0.2% at more than $70 a barrel. Bitcoin is down 0.6%.

In the world markets, the FTSE 100 is up a small fraction and the DAX is up 0.2%.

On today’s economic calendar, at 830 am housing starts and permits.

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