This morning the economic calendar is rather light, but investors will have plenty of other news to digest. That came in the form of the latest quarterly results from semiconductor giant NVIDIA (NVDA) and the release of the minutes from the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. The former is having a positive impact on trading, with the equity futures presaging a higher start to the trading day stateside. The technology-dominated NASDAQ futures are up more than 200 points in pre-market trading. (More on both events below.)
At 8:30 A.M. (EDT), the Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims for the week ending May 18th totaled 215,000, which was the lightest figure since April and still indicative of a tight labor market. A half-hour into today’s trading session, we will receive a report on April new home sales, which is expected to show a slowdown in the number of homes sold compared to March. It was been a tough week for the housing sector, as existing home sales and residential construction activity both weakened last month. That said, shares of many of the new homebuilders are trading at or near record highs, as a short nationwide supply of available homes is keeping demand for newly constructed properties firm for the well-capitalized publicly traded companies.
As noted above, the biggest news since the close of trading yesterday afternoon was the much-anticipated quarterly results from NVIDIA, which was expected to serve as a proxy for how demand for artificial intelligence (AI) is doing. NVIDIA did not disappoint, as revenue and earnings surged 262% and 461% year over year, respectively, last quarter. The blowout performance was fueled by enormous demand for processing chips used to power AI platforms. The technology titan also announced a 10-for-1 stock split and hiked its dividend payment. The NVIDIA results are giving a boost to its stock and the technology sector this morning.
Conversely, what the market did not like yesterday were the minutes from the last FOMC meeting, which concluded on May 1st. The release showed that most senior Federal Reserve officials believe that interest rates will need to stay “high for longer” to effectively tame inflation and bring the pace of price growth closer to the Fed’s target of 2%. The continuation of the current restrictive monetary policy course would not be an ideal backdrop for stocks, which are trading at record highs. The Fed minutes also puts the spotlight on next week’s April Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, which is the assessment of inflation most closely tracked by the central bank. The major equity averages gave back all of their intra-day gains and then some by the close of trading yesterday on the Fed release.
Going forward, the Federal Reserve must guard against remaining too restrictive on the monetary policy front and placing high pressure on the U.S. economy. As noted above, this week’s housing and homebuilding data have indicated some stress in that sector. This follows a disappointing report on manufacturing activity earlier this month and weaker-than-expected April retail sales data, the latter of which indicates some spending fatigue among consumers, especially on discretionary goods. – William G. Ferguson
At the time of this article’s writing, the author did not hold positions in any of the companies mentioned.
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