By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Now time for some of today’s trending tickers. We’re watching Boeing, Verizon, and 3M. Joining me now, we’ve got Yahoo Finance senior reporter, Alexandra Canal. Alex, good to see you. First up here, we got to talk a little Boeing here on the day. Boeing announcing a more than $10 billion deal this morning. The company agreeing to sell portions of its digital aviation solutions business to private equity firm, Thoma Bravo. Shares were on the move for Boeing here on the back of the steal. They’re still holding on to some slight gains here, fractionally as they may be.
00:42 Alexandra Canal
Yeah, and it’s really a tale as old as time, right? Let’s reduce our debt pile by selling off non-core assets. That’s the strategy of new Boeing CEO, Kelly Orberg. Now, part of this sale does include the navigation unit Jeppesen, which Boeing acquired for $1.5 billion in 2000. And when it launched the auction last year, it looked for a price above $6 billion at that time, but did see strong interest from potential buyers that drove the valuation higher. Now in the background, Boeing’s going to have to contend with a few issues, especially when we think about the ties to the trade war. China has reportedly forbidden its airliners from purchasing any of the company’s jets. So how that translates to sales competition, a big question mark here for Boeing. But shares are down about 9% so far this year, slightly outpacing the S&P 500. So, there’s certainly worse names on the street right now.
01:47 Speaker A
Yeah, indeed. Next up here, let’s talk Verizon, reporting a larger than expected drop in subscribers during the first quarter, hit by strong competition. Still, the mobile network operator topped revenue expectations. We’ve been keeping close tabs on shares of Verizon here on the day, which had their own warning on a guidance basis here. As we’re taking a look at shares, they’re holding on to about eight tenths of a percent in a move higher right now.
02:23 Alexandra Canal
Yeah, and the issue for me is that there’s such a limited pool of subscribers. And you have the same big three, big four carriers really fighting for that. So Verizon raised prices in January. There’s been intense aggressive promotions from carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile. So that’s going to really limit the pool of subscribers that you have. And this is something that Verizon actually warned about heading into this print. Picking out a few pieces from the earnings call, they did say that the second quarter is off to a strong start. They just introduced a three-year price guarantee in early April. So maybe that holds on to some of those subscribers there and we’ll have solid earnings for the current quarter. Uh on the trade front, this was an interesting comment from Hans Vestberg, that’s the CEO of Verizon. He said that, uh, a small portion of Verizon’s annual $18 billion CapEx spend is exposed to tariffs, just concentrated with an imported wireless equipment. So that’s a positive. Uh, and also interesting that they saw reductions in business wireless accounts due to the quote, new government and their efficiency work. So perhaps a nod to the DOD layoffs there as well.
03:51 Speaker A
Absolutely. We’ve also got to talk about this last earnings story that we’re continuing to track here, 3M, maintaining its full year guidance, but acknowledging risks from the ongoing trade war. The maker of such household products and classroom products like Scotch tape, posted notes, saying tariffs could impact full year earnings by up to 40 cents per share. Shares of 3M, they are still higher by 7.5%. Right?
04:24 Alexandra Canal
Yeah, and it’s currently leading the Dow by a significant margin. And it’s interesting to see a stock move higher when you’re warning of these tariff risks, a hit to EPS. But 3M is this defensive play. It’s a bellwether when we think about the health and state of the US consumer. The fact that first quarter earnings came in above expectations, the fact that they are maintaining that guidance, albeit with some of those caveats, I think is encouraging to the everyday investor. It just shows that at least a lot of the pain that we were expecting in those first quarter results, they did not ultimately materialize. So, we’ll continue to watch and see what happens there. I mean, on that tariff front, they did see price increases would only partially offset any potential hit. So this is a company to just continue to keep an eye on to see what they say because it’s obviously one that investors are closely tracking.
05:22 Speaker A
Yeah, and I just want to clarify, especially because we’re mentioning that 40 cents a share, they gave a range, but the 40 cents is the worst case scenario here. I think the range is like 20 cents to 40 cents a share of additional tariff sensitivity.
05:44 Alexandra Canal
Right. And we’re hearing about that, right? We’re hearing about these multiple, you know, scenarios. Right.
05:52 Speaker A
And you have to, yeah. That’s the model.
05:55 Alexandra Canal
Yes. And and it’s modeling and I think it’s also good just from an investor’s perspective to sort of know what the worst case is, what the best case is, and hopefully we fall somewhere in the middle, if not skew a little better than expected.
06:09 Speaker A
And maybe get some relief on the other side here. Thanks so much, Ally.