U.S. stock futures traded slightly higher Monday as Wall Street begins the last week of September, a month that so far has seen the S&P 500 drop 4.2% and the Nasdaq Composite slump 5.9%. Investors will be keying in on U.S. inflation data at the end or the week and monitoring negotiations in Congress over avoiding a government shutdown.
These stocks were poised to make moves Monday:
Striking writers reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios that would end a strike that lasted nearly five months. The Writers Guild of America announced the three-year deal in a statement: “We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional—with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.” Media stocks rose in premarket trading. Paramount Global (PARA) rose 3.2%, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) jumped 4%, Netflix (NFLX) rose 1%, Walt Disney (DIS) was up 0.6%, and Amazon.com (AMZN) climbed 0.5%.
Amazon, meanwhile, will be investing up to $4 billion in artificial-intelligence company Anthropic. Amazon will be taking a minority stake in Anthropic. Amazon Web Services will become Anthropic’s primary cloud provider.
Hot Chinese ADRs dropped in premarket trading as Chinese shares fell on Monday, as cautious foreign investors offloaded domestic stocks ahead of a week-long holiday, while a weak regional market also weighed on sentiment. Alibaba (BABA), Pinduoduo (PDD), and JD.com (JD) fell more than 2%; NIO (NIO) fell more than 3%; Li Auto (LI) fell about 6%.
Instacart (CART) rose 1.6% to $30.49 in premarket trading. Shares of the grocery-delivery app, officially known as Maplebear, were initiated at Wolfe Research with a Peer Perform rating and a fair value range of $24 to $42 a share. Analysts at BTIG on Friday picked up coverage of Instacart with a Neutral rating. The stock went public last Tuesday at $30 a share and opened for trading at $42. But Instacart shares have been falling since their strong trading debut.
Nike (NKE) shares fell 1.4% as Jefferies also downgraded it to hold from buy, saying the wholesale channel is likely to remain pressured and growth in China faces macro headwinds.
AstraZeneca (AZN) stock rose 1.7% as Jefferies upgraded the U.K. drugmaker to buy from hold, saying R&D assets outside oncology are being largely ignored, Morgan Stanley separately said investors will reward earnings upgrade stories in AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk and Novartis, the latter of which it upgraded to equal-weight from underweight.
Thor Industries (THO), the recreational-vehicle maker, is scheduled to report quarterly earnings after the closing bell Monday. Reports are expected later in the week from Costco Wholesale (CSCO), Micron Technology (MU), Nike (NKE), Carnival (CCL), Paychex (PAYX), Jefferies Financial (JEF), Accenture (ACN), Jabil (JBL), CarMax (KMX), and BlackBerry (BB).
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