CE 100 Index Soars 4.3% as Nike Races Ahead After Earnings

The end of the second quarter is here, and in the last full trading week of June the CE 100 Index surged 4.3%, and all pillars advanced.

A broad based rally lifted most names, and banking and “fun” stocks led the pack.

In the banking segment of the CE 100, which was 6.1% higher through the week, J.P. Morgan shares were 4.4% higher.  J.P. Morgan announced its J.P. Morgan Active High Yield ETF, through which the fund will devote at least 80% of its portfolio to junk-rated bonds, and opened with a $2 billion anchor investment.

“There’s a lot of money and investors chasing finite opportunities in the private credit market,” Asset Management CEO George Gatch said, as reported by Bloomberg. “You also have liquidity tradeoffs. You take those two things in combination and on a marginal basis, I would put my marginal dollar in public high-yield rather than private credit.”

Nike Soars After Earnings

“Have Fun” names gained 6.5%, led by Nike, which soared 20.4% on positive sentiment tied to a turnaround in its operations.

As part of its latest quarterly earnings report and as reported by PYMNTS, the company is working to mitigate that gross incremental price increase, Nike President and CEO Elliott Hill said in remarks Thursday during the firm’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

“[These] tariffs represent a new and meaningful cost headwind, and we are taking actions that balance the consumer, our partners, our Win Now actions, as well as the long-term positioning of our brands in the marketplace,” Hill said.

In response to the tariffs, Nike is reallocating its production across countries, aiming to reduce the percentage of footwear imported to the U.S. from China from the current 16% to the “high single-digit range” within a year.

The company is also implementing new partner arrangements with suppliers and retailers to mitigate the cost increase, making a “surgical price increase” that will start rolling out in the U.S. in the fall, and considering corporate cost reductions, Hill said.  In its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended May 31, Nike’s revenue of $11.1 billion was down 12% year on year.  Guidance targeting a mid single digit percentage loss in sales was slightly better to in line with the 7% analysts had expected for the current quarter.

In the Pay and Be Paid Segment of the CE 100, up 4.7%, Affirm’s stock rallied 9.7%. In partnership news reported this week, auto shop management platform Shopmonkey has added Affirm as a pay-later provider.  Affirm will become a default payment method for car repair shops that use Shopmonkey’s payment processing solution, letting them offer pay-over-time financing.

Payment Networks, Digital Assets

Mastercard has announced two separate partnerships involving digital assets.

In one collaboration, Mastercard and Fiserv have partnered to explore ways Mastercard’s global payments network can integrate Fiserv’s new stablecoin, FIUSD.  In the other, Mastercard and Chainlink have teamed up to enable cardholders to purchase crypto directly on-chain.

Mastercard’s collaboration with Fiserv will enable individuals and businesses to use FIUSD across more than 150 million merchants, the companies said. The areas in which the companies see opportunities for stablecoin adoption and utility include seamless on- and off-ramping that will allow smooth transitions between fiat and FIUSD.

Mastercard’s partnership with Chainlink, which was announced in another Tuesday press release, brings together Mastercard’s global payments network and Chainlink’s interoperability infrastructure to allow payment cardholders worldwide to purchase crypto assets directly on-chain through a secure fiat-to-crypto conversion.

Mastercard shares gained 3.3%.

Visa and FIS expanded their partnership to offer new value-added payment capabilities to financial institutions of all sizes. The new offerings will include stop payment services that enable cardholders and call centers to halt recurring payments to merchants, a wallet link that pushes an issuer’s branded digital card to the customer’s digital wallet, and eCommerce fraud mitigation that gives issuers increased eCommerce transaction approval rates and helps eliminate the financial liability of chargebacks due to fraudulent purchases, the companies said.

Visa and FIS will also offer a digital campaign manager that facilitates the use of new marketing channels, such as augmented reality events and other digital experiences.

Visa shares were 3% higher. FIS stock inched ahead by 0.8%.