Chapter 1: What is the significance of JPMorgan Chase acquiring the Apple Card business?
Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action, news, and analysis. Good afternoon. Today is Thursday, January 8th, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn. Our top story so far. JPMorgan Chase has struck a deal to acquire the Apple credit card program from Goldman Sachs, further cementing Chase's already dominant position in consumer credit.
JPMorgan will become the new issuer of the Apple Card, one of the largest co-branded card programs with roughly $20 billion in balances. Apple said key features, including 3% cash back on select purchases and the high-yield savings account tied to the card, will remain in place until the deal closes in about two years.
The Apple Card, with no number on the front and the customer's name etched in metal, was designed as a bridge between physical plastic and Apple Pay, tightly integrating with the iPhone. The shift reinforces JP Morgan's dominance in cards. It was the top U.S. issuer in 2024 with more than $1.344 trillion in purchase volume, according to the Nielsen report.
Goldman Sachs expects the deal to add about $0.46 per share to its Q4 2025 earnings. Among active stocks, Fly Exclusive has more than doubled after the company signed an authorized dealership agreement with Starlink to become a certified dealer and installer for its high-speed, low-latency aviation connectivity system. Costco Wholesale is rallying after a solid December sales report.
Evercore analyst Greg Mellick also reminded investors that a favorable resolution on tariffs could come as soon as Friday, when the Supreme Court ruling is expected.
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Chapter 2: How will the Apple Card features change with the new issuer?
And Snowflake is higher after Argus Research upgraded the stock to buy from hold with a $300 price target. Analyst Joseph Bonner said the cloud-native data platform has become critical infrastructure for enterprises building generative and agentic AI applications. In other news of note, it's an echo of Bill Pullman and Jeff Daniels. Everybody's talking about the wrong guy.
BlackRock is among today's top search terms for business news, but that should be Blackstone. President Donald Trump said he would move to restrict large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. Social media quickly targeted BlackRock, but there's a hitch. BlackRock does not purchase or own single-family rental homes.
Blackstone was the firm most closely associated with large-scale single-family rental ownership. After the financial crisis, Blackstone was an early and aggressive buyer of distressed U.S. homes, helping to institutionalize the single-family rental market. Its former portfolio company, Invitation Homes, went on to become the largest publicly traded single-family rental landlord.
And in the Wall Street Research Corner, B of A notes that lower-quality stocks have historically outperformed high-quality in a January dash for trash. What makes a stock a quality stock? Well, factors like consistent earnings growth, strong cash flow, high profitability, stable demand, strong brands, and solid management.
Chapter 3: What is the impact of Costco's sales report on its stock performance?
But B of A points out that since 1987, the lowest-quality stocks, C and D by S&P Quality Ranks, have outperformed the highest-quality, A+, nearly 80% of the time in January. and funds are heading into this January with elevated quality exposure. The B of A team screened for low-quality stocks that long-only funds are underweight, but that are buy-rated by B of A analysts. Among the names?
Amcor, Camden Property Trust, Health Peak Properties, Devon Energy, and Hasbro. You can see the full list of more than 50 stocks in our story on Seeking Alpha. I'll put that link in show notes.
That's all for today's Wall Street Lunch. Look for links for stories in the show notes section. Don't forget, these episodes will be up with transcriptions at SeekingAlpha.com.
Chapter 4: What misconceptions exist about BlackRock and Blackstone in the market?
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