Diamonds and Dogs

1/31/19

Facebook (FB) is raking it in. The social media giant is up 10% to a four month high following better than expected earnings as sales rose 30.4% to $16.91 billion ahead of estimates. Daily active users came in at 1.52 billion on average for December 2018, an increase of 9% year-over-year. Monthly active users came in at 2.32 billion as of December 31, 2018, an increase of 9% year-over-year. Facebook estimates that around 2.7 billion people now use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger each month, and more than 2 billion people use at least one of their family of services every day on average. Facebook now has $41 billion in cash and investments on the books with absolutely zero debt.

DowDuPont (DWDP) takes a hit on currency risk.  The chemical giant is down 10% following earnings. Earnings actually beat by a penny as sales rose just 0.2% to $20.1 billion below estimates. DowDuPont lowered first quarter guidance expecting currencies to be a headwind in the first half of the year led by the Euro and the Brazilian Real. DowDupont is also noting softness from de-stocking, mostly in China and clearly in Auto and some in electronics.