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Sherwin-Williams (SHW) shares rose Tuesday after the paint maker posted better-than-forecast second-quarter adjusted profit on higher residential sales. The paint maker also raised its 2024 profit outlook.

Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $3.70 jumped 12.5% year-over-year and beat the $3.46 consensus estimate of analysts polled by Visible Alpha. However, revenue of $6.27 billion was up less than 1% and trailed expectations of $6.33 billion.

The company raised its full-year outlook for both EPS and adjusted EPS. EPS for 2024 is now seen between $10.30 and $10.60, up from April's guidance of $10.05 to $10.55, while adjusted EPS projections were revised up to a range of $11.10 to $11.40 from $10.85 to $11.35.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Heidi Petz said residential sales were driving demand for the company's paint products, although "General Industrial demand was soft in all regions."

"We are clearly seeing a return on last year’s growth investments in residential repaint, where volume increased by a mid-single digit percentage in a down market," Petz said. "We’re also encouraged by growth in new residential, where we expect continued momentum over the back half of the year."

Sherwin-Williams shares were 3.3% higher at $333.02 as of 10:18 a.m. ET Tuesday. They have gained about 7% this year.

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Shares in NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI) fell sharply ahead of Tuesday’s opening bell after the Dutch-based chipmaker issued a weaker-than-expected current quarter outlook amid a slowdown in spending by automotive customers and rising geopolitical risks.

The company guided third-quarter net sales between $3.15 billion and $3.35 billion, with the high end of that forecast falling short of the $3.36 billion expected by analysts. It sees adjusted earnings in the period of $3.42 per share at the midpoint, missing the Street estimate of $3.61 a share.

For the three-month period ending June 30, sales in the chipmaker’s automotive segment contracted 7% from a year earlier to $1.73 billion, recording its largest quarterly revenue decline in more than three years, as customers in auto end markets reined in spending due to macroeconomic uncertainty.

Like other chipmakers, NXP also faces increasing geopolitical risks from Beijing’s volatile trade relations with Washington and Brussels, with tightening export curbs potentially slowing the company’s sales to China, a country that represented around 33% of NXP’s total revenue last year.

The chipmaker’s share price has oscillated within a rising wedge over the past twelve months helping to establish easily identifiable support and resistance areas. This well-known pattern, consisting of two upward-sloping converging trendlines, typically occurs after an uptrend and signals a potential reversal in a security's price.

Interestingly, share turnover has increased in recent trading sessions, possibly indicating market participants expect post-earnings volatility. Indeed, the stock sits poised to open sharply lower Tuesday, bringing the lower portion of the rising wedge pattern into play.

NXP shares were down 7.9% at $261.38 in recent premarket trading.

Looking ahead, investors should monitor the $248 level, an area on the chart where the price will likely find support from the wedge’s lower trendline. It’s also worth pointing out that there will be a greater chance of the stock resuming its longer-term uptrend from this level if the relative strength index (RSI) flashes an oversold reading below 30 at the same time.

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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Monetary Policy Committee has raised the interest rate by 50 basis points, from 26.25% to 26.75% amid surging inflation.

CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, announced this at the end of the apex bank’s 296th MPC meeting held in Abuja on Tuesday, July 23.

The MPC adjusted the asymmetric corridor around the MPR from +100 to -300 to +500 to -100 basis points.

The MPC also retained the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) of deposit money banks at 45% and merchant banks at 14% and retained the Liquidity Ratio at 30%.

According to him, the decision to further increase the interest rate is to tackle the country’s rising core inflation and food inflation which stood at 34.19 per cent and 40.87 per cent, respectively in June.

He said members of the MPC are not oblivious of the need to address the rising prices of food in Nigeria, necessitating the interest rate hike.

He said despite the June 2024 uptick in inflation, prices are expected to moderate in the near term as monetary policy gaining further traction in addition to further measurers by the fiscal authority to address food inflation.

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Shares in CrowdStrike (CRWD), the cybersecurity firm at the epicenter of Friday’s global tech outage, plunged more than 13% on Monday, as investors continue to assess the fallout from the software update that caused widespread disruption at banks, airlines, broadcasters, and many other businesses.

Amid the selling—the stock has lost 23% of its value over the last two sessions and has finished lower in five straight sessions—we take a closer look at the CrowdStrike chart and use technical analysis to point out important price levels where the stock may encounter support.

Since bottoming out in January 2023, CrowdStrike shares have trended steadily higher, with momentum accelerating after the 50-day moving average (MA) crossed above the 200-day MA in June last year to generate a golden cross, a chart pattern that often marks the start of a new uptrend.

However, more recently, the cybersecurity giant’s stock price first started showing signs of weakness last Thursday when it closed decisively beneath the 50-day MA, with the shares then gapping sharply lower on Friday, as chaos erupted after the firm's software update mishap. 

The selling has continued into this week, leading to a decisive close below the closely watched 200-day MA on Monday. Moreover, the outage-driven sell-off has occurred on significant trading volume, indicating conviction behind the move lower.

In the weeks ahead, it’s worth keeping an eye on these four important chart levels where the stock may attract buying interest if the shares continue to decline.

The first level sits at $261, just 1% below Monday’s close, where the stock may encounter a confluence of support from the December swing high and an uptrend line stretching back to the January 2023 low. This could also become an area for a short-term bounce, given the relative strength index (RSI) currently indicates deeply oversold conditions, with a reading below 20.

A breakdown below this area could spark a fall to around $212, a level on the chart where buyers could seek entry points near a period of consolidation preceding the late-November stock gap.

Ongoing weakness may see the shares revisit the $190 region, where they could attract support near a swing high that formed in October last year as part of the stock’s longer-term uptrend.

Finally, a deeper retracement could test lower support around $172 near a horizontal line linking a peak and trough on the chart between September and October last year.

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The Federal Reserve’s favorite measure of inflation likely cooled down in June, confirming the central bank’s efforts to subdue price increases are working, paving the way for rate cuts as soon as September. Forecasters expect Friday’s Personal Consumption Expenditures measure of inflation in June to mirror the trend shown by the Consumer Price Index earlier this month. PCE prices probably rose 2.5% from the year before, down from 2.6% in May, according to a survey of economists by and

The PCE measure of inflation is especially significant because it’s the benchmark that officials at the Federal Reserve pay the most attention to when setting the nation’s monetary policy. The Fed has held its influential fed funds rate at a 23-year high since last July in an effort to push inflation down to its 2% annual goal. 

Fed officials have said falling inflation would prompt them to start lowering the rate, reversing a campaign of rate hikes that began in March 2022.

The high fed funds rate has helped push interest rates on mortgages, credit cards, and other loans up, with many rates at or near their highest in decades. Lower PCE inflation could provide the data the Fed needs to justify a shift away from high rates, which are meant to slow the economy down.Financial markets are pricing in a near certainty that the Fed will hold the fed funds rate steady at its meeting next week but cut it in September, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading data. 

Rate cuts are growing more likely as PCE inflation edges closer to the 2% mark. Fed Chair Jerome Powell made clear the central bank plans to make cuts before inflation actually falls to the central bank’s goal. 

Powell and other Fed decision-makers especially watch so-called core inflation, which excludes the often-volatile prices for food and energy. Core PCE inflation rose 2.6% over the year in May, and forecasters expect that to fall to a 2.5% annual increase as well. 

Forecasters are looking for core inflation to cool because housing costs—the biggest contributor to overall inflation—are rising more slowly than they have over the past few years. Crucially, rent rose only modestly in June, which helped ease the overall inflation rate in the CPI report earlier this month.

“The downshift in rents back to a pre-pandemic pace is likely to give Fed officials increased confidence that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2%,” economists at Deutsche Bank wrote in a research note. 

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