Early Morning Call: all eyes on NFP report after US debt ceiling bill passed

NFPs

As the US debt ceiling bill passed the Senate overnight, investors and traders now await the US job report. The market expects 190,000 job creations for the month of May. The unemployment rate is seen rising one notch to 3.5%.

Yesterday's private payrolls number largely beat forecasts, showing 278,000 jobs opened in May. Forecasts had been for 170,000.

Earnings

Broadcom released better-than-forecast earnings yesterday evening. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) came in at $10.32 per share, 20 cents higher than expectations. Revenue was also marginally higher than expectations, up 8% to $8.73 billion.

Shares however fell 2% in after-hours trading. It seems that investors were somehow disappointed by the chipmaker's forecasts, even though it sees third quarter (Q3) revenue of about $8.85 billion, higher than the $8.72Bln expected by analysts. These expectations come a week after NVIDIA said it expected revenue for the current quarter more than 50% above Wall Street estimates.

As is the case for NVIDIA, artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming an important part of Broadcom's business, and now represents about 15% of its semiconductor business, up from 10% in 2022. Broadcom's CEO believes it will account for more than 25% of the company's semiconductor revenue in 2024.

After-hours trading was also choppy for Dell. Shares fell 2% after the bell, reversing gains of 5%. The stock was even briefly halted during regular trading hours when the company announced results earlier than scheduled, which smashed Wall Street's estimates for its fiscal second quarter (Q2) earnings. It published an adjusted $1.31 a share on sales of $20.90 billion in the quarter, versus analysts expectations of earnings of 86 cents a share on sales of $20.30 billion.

However, this meant that year-over-year (YoY) Dell earnings dropped 29% on a 20% drop in sales. Dell's Infrastructure Solutions Group, the unit that sells servers, storage and networking gear, reported an 18% drop in sales to $7.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the company's Client Solutions Group, the division which sells desktop and notebook PCs, posted a 23% drop in sales to $12 billion. With demand slumping, PC makers now face a pile-up in inventory amid an uncertain economic outlook.

Commodities

There's yet more evidence that crude oil continues to build. US crude oil stockpiles rose unexpectedly last week by 4.5 million barrels. Analysts in a Reuters poll foresaw a 1.4-million-barrel drop.

Gasoline stocks fell by 200,000 barrels, distillate stockpiles rose by nearly 1 million barrels in the week. Last Friday, Baker Hughes total rig count fell by nine to 711. The number of oil rigs in operation fell to 570 from 575.

OPEC+ ministers meet this weekend, and so far, four sources told Reuters that the alliance was unlikely to deepen supply cuts. In a surprise announcement last April, OPEC+ brought total output cuts to 3.66 million barrels per day, or about 4% of global consumption. This sent Brent about $9 higher to above $87 over the days that followed, but Brent has since lost those gains to trade below $73.