Stocks fell and bonds rose after a fresh reading on the labor market showed further signs of cooling.
US companies added the fewest jobs since the start of 2021 in August. Private payrolls increased 99,000 last month, according to the ADP Research Institute in collaboration with Stanford Digital Economy Lab. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 145,000 gain.
This coming Friday, the August jobs report is expected to show payrolls in the world’s largest economy increased by about 165,000, based on the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. While above the modest 114,000 gain in July, average payrolls growth over the most recent three months would ease to a little more than 150,000 — the smallest since the start of 2021. The jobless rate probably edged down in August, to 4.2% from 4.3%.
Market Snapshot
At 08:25 a.m. ET, S&P 500 futures fell 0.3%, Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.7%, Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were unchanged.
Pre-Market Movers
C3.ai, Inc., the enterprise software company, reported a narrowerfiscal first-quarter lossas revenue rose 21% to $87.2 million and beat analysts’ projections of $86.9 million. The stock fell 19%, however, as subscription revenue in the period rose 20% from a year earlier but was lower than expectations. C3.ai also said it expects a second-quarter adjusted operating loss of $26.7 million to $34.7 million, wider than the first quarter’s loss of $16.6 million.
U.S. Steel was up 2% in premarket trading after tumbling 17% on Wednesday following a report from the Washington Post that saidPresident Joe Biden would blockJapan-based Nippon Steel’s $14.1 billion deal to buy the U.S. steelmaker.
NVIDIA Corp rose 0.1%. The stock has had a tough week, including a 9.5% decline Tuesday that wiped out a$279 billion in market value, the largest one-day market cap loss for any U.S. company on record. It was announced Wednesday that Nvidia would be investing in Sakana AIand partnering with the artificial-intelligence research company to spur AI development in Japan.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the server maker and enterprise-technology company, posted fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings that beat Wall Street forecasts and revenue of $7.7 billion that matched expectations. The company said AI-server revenue hit a new company record. The stock was down 3% in premarket trading.
Verint, which sells products and services for customer experience automation, was falling 12% after reporting second-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue that missed analysts’ estimates.
ChargePoint Holdings Inc. fell 7.2% as the electric vehicle-charging company announced it would cut its workforce by about 15%, or 250 jobs, and reported second-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates.
Copart was down 5% after the auctioneer of salvaged vehicles reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of 33 cents a share, missing Wall Street forecasts of 37 cents.
Market News
Chinese EV Stocks Gain After NIO Reports Strong Sales, Margin Improvement
NIO reported revenue rose 98.9% in FQ2 to $2.4 billion. During the quarter that ended on June 30, better vehicle margin was offset by higher operating expenses. Gross margin was 9.7% in FQ2, compared with 1.0% a year ago and 4.9% in FQ1 of 2024. Notably, NIO narrowed its net loss compared to a year ago due to the higher level of sales.
The Chinese electric vehicle maker said it expects to rack up deliveries of between 61,000 and 63,000 units in FQ3.
Shares of NIO rose 5% in premarket trading, while Li Auto and XPeng were up about 1%. ZEEKR Intelligent Technology (ZK) jumped 3.5% in the early session.
Tesla Plans Full Self-Driving Rollout in China and Europe by Q1 2025
Tesla unveiled plans to launch its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025, pending regulatory approval.
The announcement was made by Tesla's artificial intelligence division, laying a roadmap of upcoming smart initiatives in a social media post on platform X.
Verizon to Acquire Frontier Communications in $20B All-Cash Deal
Verizon Communications on Thursday announced a deal to acquire Frontier Communications in an all-cash transaction valued at $20B.
Pursuant to the deal, Verizon will acquire Frontier for $38.50 a share in cash, representing a premium of 43.7% to Frontier’s 90-Day volume-weighted average share price on September 3, 2024, the last trading day prior to media reports regarding a potential acquisition of Frontier.
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