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Shares of big tech companies have coasted through this year on AI euphoria, but as Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. prepare to report results this week, some investors are starting to ask how much those AI advancements might actually cost.
Those questions have surfaced after several months during simply saying “AI” on earnings calls appeared to be enough for investors. If the economy sours though — as some expect in the second half of this year or next year — big tech’s AI ambitions could go with it.
“Given the exorbitant costs associated with the development, hosting and serving of AI products, many investors are concerned about the potential for [fiscal 2024] commentary regarding a material increase,” Jefferies analyst Brent Thill wrote, according to a MarketWatch earnings preview for Microsoft’s
MSFT,
results.
Microsoft and Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
GOOG,
which both report on Tuesday, have been in heated competition in the world of online search and digital advertisements, as Microsoft leans more on its massive investments in research lab OpenAI to muscle up its own search capabilities. But a Deutsche Bank analyst said that so far, Google appears to have the upper hand in that battle.
Still, for Microsoft, after a broader pullback in IT spending earlier this year, analysts have found more to like about its cloud-computing business — namely market-share gains, generally-sturdy demand, and whatever ways AI can fit into the equation. Wolfe Research analyst Alex Zukin, in a recent note, said he believed “the focus will turn from what is good enough, to how good can it be,” as Microsoft moves deeper into AI.
“How good can it be?” might also be a question for Meta
META,
which reports second-quarter results on Wednesday.
Shares of the social-media company have more than doubled in value so far this year. JMP analyst Andrew Boone, in a recent note, cited likely improvements in Meta’s digital ad segment, better engagement, and a broader advertising backdrop that “appears to be stable” after a slowdown in spending, Still, there are signs that the initial user attraction to Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter, has fizzled.
For the week ahead, 166 companies in the S&P 500 index report results, including 12 from the Dow, according to FactSet. Among them are Domino’s Pizza Inc.
DPZ,
which now plans to deliver pizza via Uber Eats after years of chafing at third-party delivery apps. Industrials General Electric Co.
GE,
and 3M Co.
MMM,
also report, after 3M agreed to pay $10.3 billion to settle accusations it was responsible for so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
Quick-service restaurant chains Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.
CMG,
and McDonald’s Corp.
MCD,
also report, with BofA analysts expecting an “almost normal” quarter for the industry, after spending at chain restaurants grew last month and costs for some ingredients started to ease following two years of supply disruptions. Auto makers General Motors Co.
GM,
and Ford Motor Co.
F,
also report, and while parts shortages that have constrained vehicle production have shown signs of fading, so has electric-vehicle “euphoria.”
Visa, Mastercard: Earlier this month executives from the big banks said U.S. consumers are generally doing OK despite still-rampant inflation, although perhaps less OK than in prior months. This week credit-card giants Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. report results on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. The profit, sales and credit-card volume figures from Visa
V,
and Mastercard
MA,
will offer more specifics on consumer spending, as vacations and concerts compete with more expensive and more pressing needs, like groceries and other bills.
Shares of Visa and Mastercard are up so far this year, but some analysts said there could be more room investors to step in. SVB MoffettNathanson analyst Lisa Ellis recently said shares of both companies were hovering at “unusually attractive” levels.
Mattel outlook, and anything ‘Barbie’-related: The “Barbie” movie hit theaters nationwide on Friday. And after an epic marketing campaign, Mattel Inc.’s investors, banking on the film to drive a rebound for the toy maker during the second half of this year, will be zeroed in on the box-office results following the film’s debut on Friday.
Expectations for the film are huge. And when Mattel
MAT,
reports second-quarter results on Wednesday, executives could offer the first answers to some big questions: Has the film helped revive toy sales? Sales for anything else? Will the “Barbenheimer” effect help or hurt financials?
The film — directed by Greta Gerwig, written Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling — brings together two writers with indie bona fides and two actors with mainstream starpower. Reviews so far have been favorable, and Barbie is already Mattel’s most profitable franchise. But the movie isn’t directly geared toward children, movie theaters have struggled to get back on track after pandemic lockdowns, and toy demand through this year has been weak after ballooning during the pandemic. And some analysts don’t expect “Barbie” to do much for Mattel’s stock.
Emily Bary and Jon Swartz contributed reporting to this story.
Funds associated with Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment continued to cull shares of Coinbase Global Inc. and Tesla Inc. on Monday, according to recent trade disclosures.
The ARK Fintech Innovation ETF
ARKF,
dumped 76,788 Coinbase shares
COIN,
on the day, while the ARK Innovation ETF
ARKK,
sold 127,266 and the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF
ARKW,
sold 44,784 shares.
Those were worth $26.3 million based on Coinbase’s Monday closing price of $105.55, and the sales follow ARK’s move to dump about $50 million in Coinbase’s stock Friday.
Coinbase represents 0.78% of the Fintech Innovation ETF, along with 0.15% of the Innovation ETF and 0.30% of the Next Generation Internet ETF. ARK disclosed the transactions and weightings in the daily trade notifications it posts to its website.
Read: Coinbase’s spectacular stock surge after Ripple ruling sparks fierce debate
Meanwhile, the ARK Innovation ETF shed 38,329 Tesla shares
TSLA,
on Monday, while the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF sold 6,855. Those shares were worth $13.1 million based on Tesla’s Monday closing level of $290.38. Tesla represents about 0.12% of both funds as they continue to unload shares.
Don’t miss: Tesla is looking at its best sales quarter ever
ARK scooped up 455 shares of Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
within its Next Generation Internet ETF and bought up 3,729 shares within the ARK Innovation ETF. That amounted to $1.3 million worth of stock based on Meta’s $310.62 Monday close.
Two ARK funds bought a combined $790 million in Robinhood Markets Inc.’s stock
HOOD,
with the fintech fund scooping up 25,641 shares and the Next Generation Internet ETF buying 37,630 shares. ARK added 4,608 shares of SoFi Technologies Inc.
SOFI,
to the fintech fund, worth $43,683 based on Monday’s close.
See also: SoFi’s stock catches another downgrade as analyst says it ‘needs to be valued more like a bank’
ARK was also active in shares of Twilio Inc.
TWLO,
buying 15,702 within the Fintech Innovation ETF, 133,499 within the Innovation ETF and 22,748 within the Next Generation Internet ETF. That amounted to $11.4 million in Twilio’s stock based on Monday’s $66.47 closing price.
These reports, excerpted and edited by Barron’s, were issued recently by investment and research firms. The reports are a sampling of analysts’ thinking; they should not be considered the views or recommendations of Barron’s. Some of the reports’ issuers have provided, or hope to provide, investment-banking or other services to the companies being analyzed.
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday asked an appeals court to temporarily block Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. while it challenges a ruling earlier this week green-lighting the deal.
The FTC on Thursday asked U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley to postpone her ruling — which she promptly denied — and also appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to pause the acquisition “to preserve the status quo” while the case is reviewed, claiming it is likely to succeed in its appeal.
According to the filing, the FTC claims the judge applied the wrong legal standard to its request for a preliminary injunction, and erred in a number of other matters.
The deal is set to close in the coming days, and letting it happen will “irreparably harm the public interest and the FTC,” regulators said.
Also see: GOP blasts FTC Chair Khan as a ‘bully’ after agency’s loss in Microsoft case
In a response filed with the court, Microsoft said the FTC “failed to carry its burden on independent, fact-based grounds” and “dragged its heels” before appealing.
“The court has already found that it would be inequitable” to order an injunction that could lead to “the potential scuttling of the merger,” Microsoft said, in asking for the FTC’s request to be denied.
The FTC has claimed the tie-up of a major videogame platform — Microsoft’s
MSFT,
Xbox — with a major videogame publisher — Activision
ATVI,
makes the wildly popular “Call of Duty,” among other titles — would be harmful to the videogame industry and consumers.
Microsoft has pledged to keep “Call of Duty” available to Sony’s
SONY,
PlayStation console for 10 years, and will make it available for Nintendo’s
7974,
Switch and some cloud-gaming platforms.
In her ruling clearing the deal Tuesday, Corley said the FTC did not show “this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition.”
Bloomberg News reported late Thursday that Microsoft and Activision are considering giving up some control of their cloud-gaming business in the U.K. to win approval of British regulators, who — if the U.S. appeals court does not act — are the final hurdle to the deal closing on time.
FTC Chair Lina Khan testified on Capitol Hill on Thursday, where Republican lawmakers assailed her actions and sharply criticized her agency’s court losses in trying to block the Microsoft-Activision deal and Meta’s
META,
acquisition of a virtual-reality gaming company earlier this year.
Read more: After Microsoft defeat, ‘toothless’ FTC needs to pick better battles if it wants to rein in Big Tech
Also: FTC’s probe of OpenAI marks key moment in Khan’s push to rein in Big Tech
The Federal Trade Commission late Wednesday filed notice that it will appeal a judge’s ruling this week that gave Microsoft Corp. the green light to proceed with its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc.
In a filing with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the FTC is seeking to overturn U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s ruling Tuesday, which said the deal would not hurt competition.
“The District Court’s ruling makes crystal clear that this acquisition is good for both competition and consumers,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, said in a statement.” We’re disappointed that the FTC is continuing to pursue what has become a demonstrably weak case, and we will oppose further efforts to delay the ability to move forward.”
The FTC has claimed the tie-up of a major videogame platform — Microsoft’s
MSFT,
Xbox — with a major videogame publisher — Activision
ATVI,
makes the wildly popular “Call of Duty,” among other titles — would be harmful to the videogame industry and consumers.
“The facts haven’t changed,” an Activision spokesperson said Wednesday. “We’re confident the U.S. will remain among the 39 countries where the merger can close. We look forward to reinforcing the strength of our case in court, again.”
Microsoft has pledged to keep “Call of Duty” available to Sony’s
SONY,
PlayStation console for 10 years, and will make it available for Nintendo’s
7974,
Switch and some cloud-gaming platforms.
The deal faces a July 18 deadline, and still must gain regulatory approval in the U.K.
Tuesday’s ruling was yet another antitrust setback for the FTC, which has failed to do much to rein in Big Tech, and one analyst told MarketWatch on Tuesday that the regulators need to do ” a much better job of picking their battles,”
Read more: After Microsoft defeat, ‘toothless’ FTC needs to pick better battles if it wants to rein in Big Tech
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s defeat as it sought to block Microsoft Corp.’s acquisition of videogame maker Activision Blizzard is yet another setback for an increasingly toothless regulator that needs to pick better battles with Big Tech.
On Tuesday morning, a federal judge denied the FTC’s injunction that was seeking to block the software giant’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision
ATVI,
best known for its hit videogame “Call of Duty.” The FTC argued that Microsoft
MSFT,
could withhold “Call of Duty” and other Activision games from rival console platforms such as Sony’s PlayStation, and keep the games on its Xbox only.
Microsoft, in a show of faith, committed in writing to keep “Call of Duty” on PlayStation on parity with Xbox for 10 years, agreed with Nintendo
7974,
to bring “Call of Duty” to Switch and entered into several pacts to bring Activision content to several cloud gaming services, U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley noted in her decision.
“With these 10-year contracts that Microsoft made across the board with so many vendors, Nvidia
NVDA,
Nintendo and others, 10 years is a really long time, in my opinion,” said Sarah Hindlian-Bowler, an analyst at Macquarie Equity Research, in an interview Tuesday. “It is long enough to cover the arrival and maturity of the cloud gaming market….She understands that 10 years is a very long long time to make a guarantee of this kind.”
Also read: Regulators face an antitrust dilemma after Meta launches Threads
Hindlian-Bowler said that she had been in the minority of Wall Street analysts in not believing the U.S. government would be able to block this deal.
“The assumption that this somehow decreases the market is going to prove to be wildly incorrect,” she said, adding that she does not believe that the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority will be able to block the deal either.
The latest upset at the FTC was also not too surprising to other Capitol Hill watchers, especially in the light of other high-profile setbacks by the agency and its once-heralded commissioner, Lina Khan. When she was sworn in as chair of the FTC in mid-2021, Khan was hailed as the sheriff who would rein in Big Tech.
“It’s hard to say I am surprised by the ruling because Khan has had a fairly unsuccessful track record,” said Owen Tedford, a senior research analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors. “The regulators are pushing the boundaries, deals that previously would have gone unchallenged have now gone challenged. And they are breaking precedent because Khan and company have expressed a dislike of settlements.”
The FTC’s attempts to sue Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
have had some defeats so far. In February, a California judge denied the FTC’s attempts to block Meta from buying a virtual-reality startup called Within Unlimited. The FTC’s suit to reverse Meta’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, filed in 2021, is still plodding along.
Additionally, the FTC recently filed a suit against Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
alleging that it is too difficult for consumers to cancel their Prime accounts, and the agency is reportedly also mulling another far-reaching suit against Amazon alleging that the e-commerce giant punishes merchants who do not use its logistics services. One analyst has already made a case that the FTC will lose that fight too.
“I think that the FTC is in need of some change, in need of some refreshing and in need of doing a much better job of picking their battles,” said Hindlian-Bowler. “This does feel toothless, a lot of the fights they are picking are toothless. And unfortunately, they are missing the real battle. They are missing TikTok, they are missing the real fights where we actually have national security at risk.”
In February, one of the Republican commissioners on the FTC resigned, and wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal accusing Khan of disregarding the rule of law and due process.
Compared to the European Union, which has had far more success implementing regulation to rein in Big Tech, the U.S. is still much weaker. “The EU seems to be having somewhat more success, levying big fines, getting these companies to change,” said Beacon’s Tedford. “The EU has passed these bills, but the U.S., despite these efforts, has not gotten there and is not going to get there for the next two years.”
Money spent by Big Tech to lobby Congress in a huge part of the problem, whereas in Europe, “those lawmakers feel less beholden,” he added.
More than a century ago, President Teddy Roosevelt, known for his “speak softly and carry a big stick” foreign policy, also used his bully pulpit to bust industrial monopolies.
If Khan and her staff want to follow his lead and rein in Big Tech, they need to start picking their future battles more carefully — and carry bigger sticks.
FTC Loses First Bid to Block Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The Focus Turns to U.K. Regulators.
Used Car Prices Drop By a Record. Carvana Stock Is Up, a Lot.
Technology stocks reigned supreme in the first half of the year, far outperforming the wider market. But sustaining that rally will be tough, and investors need to look now for tech stocks that are ready to benefit from the growth of artificial intelligence.
Meta Platforms Inc. launched Threads, its rival to Twitter, a day early Wednesday.
“Let’s do this. Welcome to Threads,” Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg posted on the new app.
The text-based app, a spinoff of Meta’s META Instagram, had been set to launch Thursday morning, but instead went live for users in the U.S. and more than 100 other…
Meta’s Twitter-rival Threads launches tomorrow: What we know so far
The fate of
Microsoft
$69 billion purchase of
Activision
Blizzard will finally be known in the coming weeks—and investors may want to consider taking profits on the videogame maker’s stock before then.
Shares of Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. slumped in the extended session Tuesday following a report that the Biden administration is considering a new ban on sales of AI chips to China.
Nvidia shares
NVDA,
A fell 3% after hours, following a 3.1% gain to close at $418.76, while AMD shares
AMD,
also fell 3%, after a 2.7% gain in the regular session to close at $110.39.
Late Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported the Commerce Department could further block sales of AI chips to China unless U.S. companies first obtain a special license.
The ban would follow upon similar actions last year that threatened $400 million in Nvidia sales, but the company found a workaround in supplying a version of products that avoided the ban.
Read: AMD launches new data-center AI chips, software to go up against Nvidia and Intel
Both Nvidia and AMD have launched new AI chips this year: Nvidia in March and AMD earlier in the month. Last year’s release of Open AI’s ChatGPT generative AI — with billions of dollars invested by Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
— resulted in an explosion of interest in artificial-intelligence technology, prompting luminaries to herald the technology as the biggest thing in tech since … you name it.
Read: Bill Gates says AI is only the second revolutionary tech advancement in his lifetime
News of the possible ban happened to follow a claim earlier in the day from Baidu Inc.
BIDU,
on the Chinese search company’s blog, which said its Ernie 3.5 version AI outperformed ChatGPT’s earlier version “in comprehensive ability scores,” and its latest iteration, GPT-4, which was released in mid-March, “in several Chinese-language capabilities.”
Baidu’s claim appeared to be based upon performance metrics published in China Science Daily. On Wall Street, ADRs of Baidu were down 0.7% after hours, following a 3.1% gain to close at $143.90.
As of Tuesday’s close, Nvidia shares were up 187% in 2023, and AMD shares were up 70% for the year.
Read: Snowflake adds partnerships with Nvidia and Microsoft for AI double play
Shares of Super Micro Computer Inc.
SMCI,
which have benefited from AI, also declined 3% after hours, while shares of Intel Corp.
INTC,
which supplies chips to data centers, saw shares decline 1% after hours.
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/nvidia-stock-price-ai-tesla-5af5041c
Shares of newly minted $1 trillion company
Nvidia
were taking it on the chin Monday, and investors searching for a reason should look to
Tesla
U.S. stocks fell Friday with the S&P 500 index on track for its worst week since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March suggesting the three month rally may be coming to an end.
Investors sought safety in bonds and the U.S. dollar as a wave of interest-rate hikes and hawkish commentary from international central bankers revived worries about global economic growth.
On Thursday, the Dow industrials fell 4.81 points, or less than 0.1%, to close at 33,946.71. The four-day slide is the blue-chip gauge’s longest losing streak since a five-day drop that ended on May 25, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished higher, snapping a three-day losing streak.
U.S. stocks on Friday looked set to snap the longest streak of weekly gains since 2019 for the Nasdaq.
Concerns that interest rate rises by central banks might harm global economic growth were weighing on global equities on Friday, analysts said, following interest rate rises in the U.K., Switzerland, Norway and Turkey on Thursday. The latest batch of rate hikes followed moves by the central banks of Canada and Australia earlier this month.
Data released on Friday also showed business activity in the eurozone losing momentum in June, according to a purchasing managers survey. U.S. economic growth may also be slowing. The S&P Global U.S. services index fell to a 54.1 in June from 54.9 in the prior month, a two-month low, while the manufacturing index, meanwhile, slid to a five-month low of 46.9 from 51 in May.
“US stocks are sliding as the global growth outlook continues to deteriorate following soft global PMI readings,” Edward Moya, Senior Market Analyst at Oanda wrote in a note Friday. “The risk of a sharper economic downturn is greater for Europe than it is for the US, so that could keep the dollar supported over the short-term.”
With central banks around the world promising to raise borrowing costs even higher to tame inflation, analysts focused on the potential ramifications of higher interest rates for both the health of the economy and equity valuations. In the U.S., analysts across Wall Street have warned that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite valuations are again looking unreasonably rich.
The price-to-earnings ratio for the S&P 500 based on Wall Street’s forecasts for corporate earnings over the next 12 months is just shy of 19, according to FactSet. That’s higher than the five-year average.
While the Federal Reserve opted to leave interest rates on hold in June, Chair Jerome Powell reiterated in Congressional testimony this week that senior Fed officials strongly support hiking rates “a couple of times” later this year.
Ryan Belanger, founder and managing principal at Claro Advisors, is among the analysts who believe the market’s rally is getting ahead of itself.
“The market is too confident that the Federal Reserve can engineer a soft landing and it would be wise for investors to reduce exposure to stocks,” Belanger said in emailed commentary.
With the S&P 500 down nearly 1.5% for the week, stocks are on track for their biggest such pullback since March 10, FactSet data showed.
Of course, the market is coming off a rally which is leading some to conclude that this might be a healthy pullback. The S&P 500 had climbed for five straight weeks through June 16, its longest such winning streak since November 2021, Dow Jones Market Data show. Meanwhile, the technology-heavy Nasdaq had logged eighth straight weekly advance to mark its longest stretch of gains since March 2019.
“Some of this is a bit of a giveback and when you look at the market action from the last month and a half, we’ve kind of gone parabolic,” said Paul Nolte, senior wealth manager and market strategist at Murphy & Sylvest Wealth Management, during a phone interview with MarketWatch.
Defensive assets like the dollar and high-quality sovereign bonds were outperforming on Friday, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
falling five basis points to 3.744%. Yields on 10-year U.K. gilt
TMBMKGB-10Y,
and 10-year German bunds were down by 10 basis points or more. Crude prices
CL.1,
which are sensitive to expectations for the global economy, fell 1.6% to $68.49 a barrel.
However, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen struck an upbeat tone Friday when she said during an interview with Bloomberg that recession risks in the U.S. have faded “because look at the resilience of the labor market, and inflation is coming down.”
Investors will hear from Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester later. She’s expected to speak at 1:40 p.m. Eastern Time.
The summer haze settling over stocks doesn’t look ready to budge Thursday, with the S&P 500 index
SPX,
in the throes of its longest losing streak since May.
On the bright side, the index is looking at a 6% gain for the June quarter, whose end is just a few days away.
In other corners of the market, the quarter has been less forgiving. Consumer staples, those things you can’t live without, have lost over 1%, perhaps reflecting the tougher economic times we are living in. Within that sector, though, is beer and one name that has indeed had a quartarius horriblis.
Anheuser-Busch InBev’s
ABI,
BUD,
U.S.-listed shares are down about 15%, as Bud Light sales have tumbled following consumer backlash to a social-media campaign featuring trans activist Dylan Mulvaney in April.
But our call of the day from Deutsche Bank says it’s time to buy this unloved stock, even if those Bud Light sales never recover. A team of analysts led by Mitch Collett have upgraded Anheuser-Busch shares to buy from hold and lifted their price target to €60 euros from €59 euros (they didn’t offer an ADR price target).
Recent underperformance of the stock “implies a permanent reduction in ABI’s U.S. business. Our proprietary survey data suggests these headwinds are likely to fade even if we do not expect the U.S. business ever to fully recover from its current challenges,” said Collett.
The analysts pointed to recent Nielson data that showed ABI’s U.S. business currently down 12%, with Bud Light sales off 24% and the rest of its portfolio down 7%. But an analysis of distribution data shows ABI itself isn’t “losing shelf presence” as sales velocity is the primary driver of the decline, which bodes well if consumer sentiment improves, said Deutsche Bank.
Those declines are about a 12% headwind to ABI’s annual net income, which is in line with European underperformance seen by the stock, added Collett and the team.
Read: Bud Light dethroned as top-selling beer by Modelo, as boycott cuts into sales
Deutsche Bank conducted its own survey that showed 24% of Bud Light consumers are no longer buying that brand, with 18% buying less, but 21% buying more and 37% buying the same amount. Those findings are largely consistent with Nielson;s, said the analysts.
Deutsche Bank’s own survey also showed that 42% of Bud Light drinkers expect to be buying Bud Light again in three to six months, versus 29% who see that as unlikely. And 50% expect that battered beer’s reputation will recover in time, versus 30% who says it won’t. “We believe this bodes well for the brand, recapturing some of its lost share,” said Collett and the team.
Analysts at RBC Capital also recently pushed back on the selloff for the stock, saying the hit to the shares and forecasts for the stock are “excessive,” as they don’t see Bud Light’s troubles hurting AB InBev outside the U.S.. They said AB InBev is a “nerve-racking buying opportunity.”
Ahead of Thursday’s open, U.S.-listed Bud shares were up about 1.3%, tracking gains from its Belgian shares.
U.S. stock index futures
ES00,
NQ00,
are drifting lower, with bond yields
TMUBMUSD02Y,
TMUBMUSD10Y,
on the rise and oil prices
CL.1,
also weaker. The Norwegian krone
USDNOK,
is up 1.5% against the dollar after the country’s central bank hiked interest rates 50 basis points. Switzerland also hiked rates, but the Swiss franc is steady
USDCHF,
The British pound
GBPUSD,
is higher after the Bank of England also hiked interest rates by 50 basis points. The Turkish lira was falling slightly after the central bank, under new management, hiked interest rate to 15% from 8.5%, against forecasts for a hike to 20%.
China markets were closed for a holiday, with losses elsewhere, such as Japan
NIK,
and Australia
XJO,
For more market updates plus actionable trade ideas for stocks, options and crypto, subscribe to MarketDiem by Investor’s Business Daily.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s second day of testimony on Capitol Hill kicks off at 10 a.m. Eastern. On Wednesday, he said higher interest rates should be expected , but didn’t offer any clues on timing. U.S. weekly jobless benefit claims and current account data are due at 8:30 a.,m. ET, with leading indicators also at 10 a.m., alongside a speech from Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester. Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin will speak at 4:30 p.m.
The Bank of England will announce an interest-rate decision at 7 a.m. ET and after worse-than-expected inflation data on Wednesday, a 50 basis-point hike hasn’t been ruled out.
Darden Restaurants
DRI,
will report ahead of the open, with Smith & Wesson
SWBI,
due after the close.
Tesla stock
TSLA,
is down 2% in premarket trading on the heels of the EV maker’s worst loss in two months.
Joining recent actions by other big stakeholders cashing in on big gains for Nvidia
NVDA,
a board member just sold $51 million in stock.
A giant drilling machine is moving Stockholm toward an emissions-free future
These were the top searched tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m. :
| Ticker | Security name |
|
TSLA, |
Tesla |
|
MULN, |
Mullen Automotive |
|
NVDA, |
Nvidia |
|
AMC, |
AMC Entertainment |
|
APE, |
AMC Entertainment preferred holdings |
|
NIO, |
Nio |
|
PLTR, |
Palantir Technologies |
|
MANU, |
Manchester United |
|
SPCE, |
Virgin Galactic Holdings |
|
AAPL, |
Apple |
Are Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg ready for a cage match?
It’s summertime. Let your kids get bored.
Tokyo streets now offer the chance to snuggle an alpaca
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Stock futures were falling following three straight days of losses for Wall Street. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell again will be delivering testimony before Congress. His comments on Wednesday that the central bank likely would be raising rates further this year pushed markets lower.
