Boeing agrees to plead guilty

06th July 2024 – 12th July 2024 | Another week in the markets

S&P 500	Nasdaq	VIX	DJIA	Russell 1000	NYSE
5,615.35	18,398.45	12.46	40,000.90	3,058.63	18,505.92
0.87%	0.25%	-0.16%	1.59%	1.02%	2.25%
Nifty 50	Gold	Silver	Brent crude	USD-INR	EUR-INR
24,502.15	$2,416.00	$31.03	$85.27	83.52	91.10
0.73%	0.68%	-1.59%	-1.83%	0.06%	0.67%

Source: MarketWatch 

Hello Saturday,

This week, Tesla stock sees a major post-rally sell-off, Boeing agrees to admit to wrongdoing and pay a fine, and competition heats up in the Indian auto sector.

• After a massive rally, Tesla shares see 8% one-day slump due to postponed robotaxi unveiling.
• PepsiCo earnings for Q2 2024 beat estimates, but demand weakens in its home market.
• Boeing agrees to plead guilty to deceiving the Federal Aviation Administration.
• Hyundai’s IPO-bound India unit faces stiff competition from Tata and Mahindra.

Taking stock | Electric blues | Less fizz than expected? | Landing in trouble | Hot wheels | Invest wisely

Taking stock

A higher-than-expected Producer Price Index (PPI) rise buoyed US markets on Friday, taking the Dow to a fresh high and helping the Nasdaq and S&P 500 recover. All the major indices ended the week in the green — while the S&P 500 gained 0.87%, the Dow and the Nasdaq rose by 1.59% and 0.25% respectively.

Electric blues

Tesla’s share price fell by more than 8% on Thursday, its biggest plunge since January of this year, after a report claimed that the automaker would postpone its robotaxi launch by two months.

While Tesla had initially planned to unveil its much-vaunted autonomous robotaxi in August, it has reportedly pushed the event back to October because it needs more time to build prototypes. This news led Uber and Lyft shares to rally.

Prior to this fall, Tesla stock had notched up gains for 11 consecutive trading days, with its share price going from $182.58 to $263.26 between 24 June and 12 July. 

Currently, many observers are of the opinion that Tesla’s long-term prospects are heavily dependent on technological advances that are quite tentative. For instance, Swiss bank UBS has downgraded Tesla’s rating from neutral to sell, as its analysts believe the stock has benefited inordinately from AI hype. And while Citi has significantly raised its price target for Tesla from $182 to $274, it has maintained its neutral rating.

Less fizz than expected?

While PepsiCo managed to beat Q2 earnings estimates, it failed to meet revenue expectations for the quarter, chalking up $22.50 billion against the expected $22.57 billion. 

The company appears to be having a tough time in its home country currently: it had to recall a few products late last year and early this year due to potential Salmonella contamination, and it’s facing increasing competition from lower-priced private-label products.

A series of price hikes in the packaged product sector over the past several years are finally leading to customer pushback, with demand for PepsiCo products falling in the US. While company executives had previously stated that it was mostly low-income consumers who were feeling the pinch, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta has now said that consumers across all income levels are changing how they shop.

Given the turbulence it might face at home, the company is paying close attention to its overseas markets. Laguarta stated on Thursday that India would remain a high-demand market for a long time, and that the company was building a lot of infrastructure in the country in order to capitalise on the “massive opportunity” it represented.

Landing in trouble

Earlier this week, embattled aerospace giant Boeing indicated its willingness to plead guilty to the charge of deceiving the Federal Aviation Administration. The company has been accused of providing “misstatements” regarding the 737 Max to regulators in 2017, prior to two crashes in 2018 and 2019 that involved 737 Max planes.

The first such charge was put forward in 2021, but Boeing reached an agreement with prosecutors at that time that let it avoid prosecution by paying a fine and completing three years of “corporate probation”.

However, in May of this year, the US Justice Department deemed that Boeing had not adhered to the terms of the corporate probation agreement.

To avoid criminal charges, Boeing is willing to pay a total fine of $487.2 million, invest at least $455 million in improving safety, and have its board of directors personally meet the families of victims.

The increased scrutiny that Boeing has been facing from regulators has also affected its production: it announced last week that 737 Max deliveries scheduled for 2025 and 2026 may be delayed by a few months.

Hot wheels

Even as Hyundai’s India unit prepares for one of the biggest Asian IPOs (at an estimated issue size of $3.5 billion) in recent memory, Tata Motors and Mahindra are snapping at its heels in a bid to oust it from its No. 2 position in India.

While Maruti Suzuki is India’s biggest automaker, selling 40% of all passenger cars in June 2024, Hyundai (13.5%), Tata Motors (13.2%), and Mahindra (12.4%) are all vying for second place.

The EV category is something all three contenders are focused on. Hyundai is investing billions of dollars in India to develop electric vehicles and get a second plant ready by 2025. Tata Motors is looking to offer 10 more EV models by 2026. And while Mahindra is also looking to build EVs, it’s not neglecting its core SUV market either: it aims to put out 9 new SUVs and 7 EVs by 2030.

Such competitiveness in the Indian automobile market, one of the fastest-growing in the world, is likely to benefit consumers.

Invest wisely 

US companies like Tesla are at the forefront of innovation: the Elon-Musk-led automaker is working on so many lateral technologies (energy storage, humanoid robots, full self-driving, etc.), that analysts sometimes refer to its offerings as separate businesses-within-a-business.

To tap into the growth potential of such world-changing companies, invest in the US through Appreciate. Download the Appreciate app now. 

Warm regards,
Another week
in the markets