Stocks Futures Waver After Hitting Fresh Records
January 26 2021 - 7:24AM
Dow Jones News
By Caitlin Ostroff and Joanne Chiu
U.S. stock futures were little changed after major indexes hit
records a day earlier and investors got ready for a slew of
blue-chip earnings.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 wavered between gains and
losses, indicating the benchmark gauge may open flat after notching
a record high Monday. Futures for the technology-focused Nasdaq-100
index declined 0.2% and contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial
Average edged 0.1% higher.
This week marks the height of earnings season, with shares of
General Electric rallying 4.9% premarket after the industrial
conglomerate reported forecast-beating fourth-quarter revenue and
free cash flow.
Verizon, Raytheon Technologies, American Express and Lockheed
Martin are also due to report earnings before the opening bell
Tuesday. Starbucks, Microsoft and Texas Instruments will release
results after markets close. Major tech firms, including Apple,
Tesla and Facebook, will update investors Wednesday.
Investors will watch to see if earnings can continue to top
analysts' expectations, providing a further catalyst to push
markets higher.
"What's working in the market's favor is the overall trend of
economic growth is still robust and that's likely to translate to
positive earnings," said Shoqat Bunglawala, head of multiasset
solutions, international, at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
"There's an expectation that there's going to be more robust growth
driven by pent up demand in the second half of the year."
In premarket trading, shares of GameStop rose more than 15% as
individual traders, propelled by social media, piled into the
stock. Shares swung wildly Monday and have gained more than 300%
this year, in the latest sign that frenetic trading by retail
traders is leading to outsize market swings.
Software and services firm BlackBerry, another favorite among
individual traders, gained 17% premarket. Etsy rose 5.7% premarket
in the minutes after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted "I kinda love
Etsy."
The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.8%. Shares of UBS
Group rose 1.6% after the Swiss bank announced a new buyback
program of up to $4.5 billion, having closed 2020 with a
consensus-beating quarterly performance.
Travel and transportation stocks were hit hard on concerns about
the speed of vaccine rollouts and the timing of some countries'
reopenings. Jet-engine maker Rolls-Royce was down 4.7% at its
lowest level of the year.
In bond markets, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury
note ticked up to 1.050% from 1.038% Monday. Yields rise when
prices fall.
Indexes in Asia handed back some of the robust gains registered
in the first few weeks of this year. The Hang Seng Index in Hong
Kong dropped 2.6%, as heavyweight Tencent Holdings fell 6.3%,
retreating from a record high reached in the previous session. The
Shanghai Composite shed 1.5%, the Nikkei 225 retreated 1% and South
Korea's Kospi Composite lost 2.1%.
In a surprise move, the People's Bank of China withdrew 78
billion yuan, or the equivalent of $12 billion, from the Chinese
financial system through open-market operations Tuesday. The move
runs counter to expectations in the run-up to the Lunar New Year
holidays, when China's banking system usually needs more, not less,
liquidity.
At 10 a.m. ET, The Conference Board is due to release its index
of consumer confidence, which will show whether U.S. consumers'
outlook on the economy improved or deteriorated in January.
Data showing the pace of U.S. home-price growth in November will
be out at 9 a.m. In the year to October, the S&P CoreLogic
Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home
prices in major metropolitan areas, rose 8.4%.
Write to Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com and Joanne
Chiu at joanne.chiu@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 26, 2021 07:09 ET (12:09 GMT)
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