CPI, volatile market, oil dips

1. January’s consumer price index slightly exceeded estimates month-over-month: up 0.5% headline and up 0.4% core, excluding food and energy. Year-over-year is slightly higher than expected up 6.4% headline and up 5.6% core, but slightly lower sequentially. Stocks are bouncing around after the release on retail inflation. The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are set for a lower open.

2. Oil prices are down after the U.S. said it will sell 26 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, already at its lowest levels since 1983. This SPR sale, which was mandated previously by Congress, was not related to last year’s release of 180 million barrels to curb prices after Russia invaded Ukraine.

3. Occidental Petroleum (OXY) upgraded to buy from Neutral at Goldman Sachs. Analysts say cash flow, upstream portfolio, chemicals business, and low carbon segment are all underappreciated. One of our oil holdings, Devon Energy (DVN), reports earnings after the closing bell Tuesday.

4. Coca Cola (KO) fourth-quarter revenue beat: $10.13 billion versus $10.02 billion expected. Adjusted earnings in-line at 45 cents per share. Organic sales up 15%, with a 12% benefit from price increases and more expensive mix of drinks sold. Full-year guidance comparable EPS growth of 4% to 5% versus 3% expected.

5. Goldman Sachs initiatives coverage on security software stocks. The analysts have buys on Palo Alto Networks (PANW), with the most upside to price target, as well as CrowdStrike (CRWD), Check Point (CHKP) and Fortinet (FTNT). Neutrals on SentinelOne (S), Zscaler (ZS) and AvePoint (AVPT). Sells on CloudFlare (NET) and Okta (OKTA).

6. Bank of America says the artificial intelligence (AI) arms race could quadruple Nvidia‘s (NVDA) data center sales in the next five years. They increase price target to $255 per share from $215. However, the near term for Nvidia could be volatile, according to Bofa, given recent outperformance and potentially a conservative guide. But they think any pullback in shares of the Club stock would be short-lived ahead of the chip company’s March 20 to 23 GTC developer conference.

7. Cowen says trade down across consumer retail is accelerating, favoring the off-price retailers. The analyst say Club holding TJX Companies (TJX) is best positioned and raise price target to $88 from $85. Also increase BULRL PT to $236 from $177 and ROST to $23 from $103.

8. Club holding Ford (F) is eliminating approximately 3,800 jobs in Europe as the automaker continues to restructure its business to become leaner and reduce its cost structure. Germany and the United Kingdom are where the majority of the affected jobs are located.

9. Bank of America aggregated credit and debit card data shows online spending fell 2% year over year in January.

10. Industrial gas company and Club holding Linde‘s (LIN) price target was increased to $378 per share from $370 at BMO Capital.

(Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long NVDA, TJX, F, DVN, LIN. See here for a full list of the stocks.)

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