Business

Disney served a big surprise moments ago when it reported reported Q3 revenue of $14.24 bn that missed the average analyst estimate, $14.42, even as Q3 EPS of $1.58, above the $1.55 expected.  That was not the surprise: what was is that Bob Iger's entertainment giant just made what was until recently a simmering war with Netflix, hot when the firm announced it would end its streaming act with Netflix, pulling its new release movies starting in calendar 2019, and instead it would launch it own ESPN direct-to-customer video streaming service in 2018.

With Q2 earnings season rapidly approaching its end, Bank of America points out a curious observation: stocks that beat earnings expectations are not getting "rewarded" with higher prices. This is the first time this has been observed in 17 years  - the last time the market seemed oblivious to corporate upside was in 2Q 2000... just before the Tech Bubble burst. As BofA warns, "this could be a warning sign that equity market expectations and positioning more than reflect the good results."

Corporate leverage has never been higher, and policy uncertainty is extremely elevated... so it makes 'perfect' new normal sense that high-yield credit spreads have collapsed to multi-year tights. However, as Goldman Sachs notes, the extreme dislocations are starting to show some cracks (as HY ETF option skews suggest investors quietly positioning for wider spreads).

Authored by Mark Burgess via Columbia Theadneedle Investments blog, 

Quantitative easing has served as a life raft for many of the world’s economies. Now central banks face the prospect of moving on, but the question is: how?

And the hits keep coming for the unicornest unicorn in all of unicorn-land...

First, for those hoping for a 'return of the king' moment, Recode reports that Travis Kalanick is not coming back as CEO of Uber. That's according to board member Garrett Camp, who sent an email to employees yesterday, addressing recent reports that Kalanick was “Steve Jobs-ing it” and attempting a comeback; the Uber board is said to have narrowed down its search for a replacement to four people.