Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange floor on Sept. 9, 2024.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
U.S. stock futures slipped Tuesday night as investors assessed the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris and looked toward the August consumer inflation report due Wednesday morning.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 172 points, or 0.42%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures both dipped 0.52% and 0.68% respectively.
In after-hours action, shares of GameStop dropped 10%. The video game retailer amended an open market sale agreement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, allowing it to sell up to 20 million additional shares of its Class A common stock.
During Tuesday’s regular trading, the S&P 500 advanced nearly 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.8%, aided by a jump in Nvidia shares. It marked a back-to-back gain for the broad market benchmark and the tech-heavy index. The 30-stock Dow was the outlier, falling 0.2% as a decline in JPMorgan shares weighed on the blue-chip index.
Traders are anticipating a key economic report Wednesday morning: August’s consumer price index. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the headline CPI to have risen 0.2% from the previous month and 2.6% from a year earlier.
The CPI report and Thursday’s producer price index could help determine the size of a widely expected rate cut at the end of the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting on Sept. 18. Fed funds futures trading suggests a 69% chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut and a 31% likelihood of a 50-basis-point reduction, according to CME’s FedWatch Tool.
“I think what we’re going to see next week is a Fed that gives us a 25-basis-point rate cut because to give us a 50-basis-point cut will set off alarm bells and would also be an admission of guilt,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco, on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”
“I don’t think that the Fed keeping us at very restrictive monetary policy levels for a long time creates damage that is irreparable, but I do believe every day that we have rates at these levels the odds of a recession increase,” Hooper added.
She noted that central bankers may have to indicate next week through their dot plot — a chart of Fed policymakers’ projections for rates — that future reductions are on deck sooner rather than later.
1 Hour Ago
Shares of Trump Media fall 10.5% following debate
Jaque Silva | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Shares of Trump Media fell 10.5% in premarket trade after Tuesday evening’s presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
The shares had rallied ahead of the live TV debate between the two presidential candidates, but dipped after the pair butted heads over topics including the economy, immigration and abortion.
The company, which is majority owned by the former president, has been on a rocky path since it debuted on the Nasdaq in March 2024, with volatility rising in recent weeks as the Nov. 5 election draws nearer.
— Karen Gilchrist
2 Hours Ago
European stocks opened higher
European stocks were higher on Wednesday as global markets focus on the latest U.S. inflation data set to be released later in the day.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.39% by 8:30 a.m. London time, with the majority of sectors and all major bourses ticking higher. Mining stocks were up 1.78%, while health care fell 0.49%.
Retail stocks rose 1.72%, led by gains for Spanish fashion house Inditex, which added 4.2% after reporting a rebound in sales.
Europe Stoxx 600
*Data is delayed | Exchange | EUR
508.65
+0.70 (+0.14%)
Last | 9:08 AM GMT
WATCHLIST+
Stoxx 600.
— Karen Gilchrist
11 Hours Ago
Markets could see a ‘punch in the stomach’ moving forward, says Chris Verrone
On top of an already weak September that has historically pushed stocks lower, Wall Street could see another jolt ahead, according to Strategas Research Partners partner and head of technical analysis Chris Verrone.
“I don’t think we get through the next four five six weeks without some punch in the stomach,” Verrone told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Tuesday. “Will that be viable? I do think ultimately it will be. The trends underneath it are probably strong enough, but there are questions that we have about what is the countercyclical message of markets and macro telling us about 2025.”
— Brian Evans
11 Hours Ago
Next year’s earnings growth forecasts rely on tech and health care most of all, Strategas says
Next year’s ambitious earnings growth forecasts rely on stronger results from technology and health-care stocks far more than any other sector, Strategas Securities analysts Ryan Grabinski and Jonathan Byrne wrote to clients Tuesday.
Tech and health care are forecast to contribute half of the 15% expected growth in S&P 500 profits in 2025. “With those two sectors being particularly important for next year’s growth, any downward revisions there will slow the growth rate significantly,” Strategas said. Financials and communications services stocks are also expected to show large contributions to next year’s profits, while consumer staples and consumer discretionary stocks are only forecast to boost 2025 profits by 10% combined.
Assumptions also rely on sky-high profit margins for corporate America as a whole.
The 15% earnings growth analysts see in 2025 would lift S&P 500 earnings to $280, and implies profit margins “next year would have to reach an all time high of 13.9%. This would be more than 1 percentage point higher than any point in the last 35 years. The highest operating EPS margin achieved was 12.4% in 2021 which was also a time when costs were way down due to closures and spending was up due to government transfers. For next year, it’s very difficult to see how nearly 14% margins can be achieved,” Strategas added.
— Scott Schnipper