Pre-market futures are up again ahead of the first trading day for the new week. We saw European market indexes rise and Asian markets perform even better — +1.2% on both the Shanghai and Nikkei. This follows a robust Friday in domestic indexes, particularly the 349-point gain (1.4%) in the Dow.
Warren Buffett maintained his formidable relevance this morning, appearing on CNBC’s Squawk Box with host Becky Quick following his 53rd yearly letter to shareholders released this weekend. The Oracle of Omaha spoke about his firm, Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B, gaining $100 billion gain in unrealized equities, translating to massive reduced liabilities. Boiling this down, Buffett announced a $29 billion benefit from recent U.S. tax restructuring.
Buffett will also be stepping down from the board of Kraft Heinz KHC, which initially pressurized shares before the rising tide of market futures lifting this boat as well. The 87-year-old with a net worth of $87 billion also spoke about his planned healthcare services platform, combining efforts of Berkshire with Amazon AMZN and JPMorgan JPM, while citing the healthcare industry in the U.S. is a “major economic problem.”
Specifically, Buffett cited the choice of the right CEO is crucial for this venture, with the goal being to improve healthcare for everyone. It looks to be a potentially huge enterprise without its main goal being to cut costs and turn a profit.
Q4 earnings season begins to unwind — save for the retailers, whose fiscal calendar is a month behind to collect complete holiday shopping data — but prior to today’s open, we saw a top- and bottom-line miss for Dean Foods DF. The dairy giant posted 25 cents per share, missing by a penny and -34% year over year, on $1.94 billion in sales which fell short of the $1.95 billion expected. Guidance for full-year 2018 is in a range of 55-80 cents per share; the Zacks consensus was 86 cents. For more on DF’s earnings, click here.
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