Wall Street got the week off to a mixed start, but as we look to today, the futures are indicating a solid open for the major U.S. indexes. In overnight trading, markets in Asia were mostly up, and the major European indexes are largely showing small gains. Elsewhere, oil prices have edged higher, with West Texas Intermediate up about 0.2%, to around $85.60 a barrel.
Corporate earnings reports continue to stream in at a steady pace, with nearly one-third of S&P 500 companies scheduled to announce this week. Investors will be particularly focused on the latest financials from large tech companies this week. These include Google’s parent company Alphabet (GOOG), and Microsoft (MSFT) after today’s close, followed by Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META) on Wednesday, and Amazon.com (AMZN) and Intel (INTC) on Thursday.
Meanwhile, yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries rose above 5% last week. This marked the first time that the benchmark rate hit that level since 2007. This is notable in that it will likely place added pressure on consumers, in the form of higher borrowing costs for automobiles, homes, and student loans, among others. This is also bad news for stocks, as higher payouts on “risk-free” issues increases competition for investor dollars.
The week also includes a number of key economic news. Tomorrow, the Census Bureau will report new home sales figures for September. Market watchers are calling for the total to come in around 680,000 units, 5,000 higher than the August tally. On Thursday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will announce the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter, which Wall Street analysts believe will jump about 4.5%, versus an increase of 2.1% logged in the June interim. We’ll also get tallies for durable goods orders and pending home sales for September. Lastly, on Friday we’ll get the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index for last month. Analysts there are looking for a 0.3% increase versus August (down from 0.4%), with the year-over-year figure falling to about 3.4% (down from 3.5%).
Summing up Monday’s performance for the major indexes, the Dow Jones Industrials fell 190 points or 0.6%, the S&P 500 slipped by seven points (0.2%), and the tech-focused NASDAQ bucked the trend by rising 34 points (0.3%). – Mario Ferro
At the time of this article’s writing, the author did not have positions in any of the companies mentioned.
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