Normally, I don’t talk Delta (DAL, because it doesn’t interest me), but their earnings touched on several relevant topics as well as a few I’ve commented on in the past. So, I’ll add my two cents. I’ll leave a link to the CNBC interview that references these points:

1) Hurricanes Helene and Milton dampened both last quarter’s results and the outlook for the next.

No kidding. Ed Bastian (CEO) mentioned the hurricanes shaved $0.03 off earnings. DAL reported $1.50 against the $1.52 expected. Add those $0.03 back, and DAL beats. Add my two cents, and DAL meets.

The stock is down ~1%. Given the 35% rally since the yen-carry episode, the relatively muted response indicates the market was expecting this.

These hurricanes are going to distort more than just airline earnings. For the next few months, we need to be cognizant that these events – in addition to the recent union strikes in the country – will eventually show up in economic reports concerning inflation and growth.

2) Crowdstrike (CRWD) and Microsoft (MSFT) still provide services to Delta despite the major outage.

Shortly after the outage (yes, THE outage), I said that cybersecurity is really sticky and customer turnover at CRWD isn’t a material concern. Now, we have confirmation: the client that was impacted the worst hasn’t switched and isn’t considering it. Cybersecurity may be stickier than even I originally anticipated. Same can be said for enterprise software.

3) U.S. Presidential election in November has subdued travel demand, leading to a weaker outlook.

I get it, we live in an increasingly politicized world. But I don’t know anyone holding off on booking a trip because of the election. Maybe business travel is different, but overall, this feels more like a hedge.

Delta’s historical data supposedly shows this is typical during election years, but I’m not buying it. Pepsi mentioned something similar, and it just doesn’t add up to me.

As a finance guy, I’m wired to underreact to political noise. One of the worst mistakes you can make is letting politics drive portfolio decisions. Markets are nonpartisan. Stocks rise (or fall, but often rise) regardless of who’s in the White House.