U.S. stock futures wavered Thursday as investors looked beyond the hawkishness of the Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes and toward labor data coming later this week. ADP said 235,000 private-sector jobs were created in December.
Market Snapshot
At 8:18 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 95 points, or 0.28%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 9.5 points, or 0.25%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 27.5 points, or 0.25%.
Pre-Market Movers
Walgreens Boots Alliance — The drugstore stock fell about 2% in premarket even after the company reported fiscal first quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates. The company also raised its full-year revenue outlook partly due to its U.S. health care segment’s acquisition of Summit Health.
Amazon.com — Amazon’s stock gained about 2% after announcing that it’s cutting 18,000 jobs, becoming the latest technology company to cut back after expanding rapidly during the pandemic.
Western Digital — Shares jumped more than 5% after Western Digital and Japan’s Kioxia Holdings resumed merger talks, according to a Bloomberg News report that cited sources familiar with the matter.
Silvergate Capital — Shares of crypto friendly bank Silvergate Capital tumbled more than 43% after it said digital asset deposits tumbled by $8.1 billion from Sep. 30 through the end of the year to just $3.8 billion amid a “crisis of confidence” in the sector following FTX’s collapse. The bank said it was forced to sell $5.2 billion in debt to cover withdrawals and recorded a in a $718 million loss in the fourth quarter on that sale.
Luminar Technologies, Inc. — Shares rose more than 4% after the maker of vehicle “lidar” announced new technology, and said in a trade show that it met 2022 performance goals.
Coinbase Global, Inc. — Shares of the crypto services company fell more than 6% in premarket trading after Cowen downgraded the stock citing the difficult macro environment and lingering concerns about the failure of FTX. The downgrade comes a day after Coinbase reached a $100 million settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services over shortcomings in anti-money laundering standards.
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. — Shares declined more than 2% after Jefferies downgraded the stock to hold from buy, saying 2023 “will be a more challenging fundamental year for growth names.” The firm expects less upside for CrowdStrike from here.
Wendy's — Shares of the fast-food chain dropped 2% after being downgraded to perform from outperform by Oppenheimer. The firm believes the stock’s risk/reward and valuation are now fairly balanced.
Shopify —Shares dipped more than 2% before the bell after Jefferies downgraded Shopify to a hold from a buy rating, citing uncertain macro challenges ahead for the e-commerce stock.
American Express — The stock fell 1.48% in the premarket after being downgraded by Stephens on Thursday to underweight from equal weight. The firm’s analysts, concerned about American Express’ cushion heading into a recession, also cut their price target to $134 per share from $146 and slashed their 2023 EPS estimates by 8%.
AMTD Digital Inc., AMTD IDEA GROUP SPON ADS EACH RP 2 CL A ORD(POST SPLIT) — The former one surged 80.1% after crashing over 99% from the peak at $2555.3, while the latter one soared over 20%.
Market News
Federal Reserve officials last month affirmed their resolve to bring down inflation and, in an unusually blunt warning to investors, cautioned against underestimating their will to keep interest rates high for some time.
Apple is set to sign up Chinese contract manufacturer Luxshare Precision Industry Co Ltd to produce premium iPhone models, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Microsoft underperformed big technology peers on U.S. exchanges on Wednesday as its shares fell 4.37% following a downgrade by brokerage UBS on worries over slowing growth for its cloud services and Office suite.
Amazon.com’s layoffs will affect more than 17,000 employees, a higher number than the company initially planned and one that would represent the most reductions revealed so far during a wave of cutbacks at major technology companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission announced Wednesday that it planned to fine Meta Platforms, Inc. a combined €390 million ($410 million) for data-processing issues related to Facebook and Instagram.
Qualcomm on Wednesday unveiled a processor chip for the car called Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC that handles both assisted driving and cockpit functions, including entertainment.
Coinbase Global, Inc. has been under investigation by the New York State Department of Financial Services and settled on Jan. 4 for $100 million. Half of that amount is a fine, and the other $50 million will be used by Coinbase to improve its compliance practices.
NIO Inc.'s ET5 electric sedan wait time in China has been further reduced, after a similar change in that information was seen a week ago. Consumers who lock in orders for the ET5 now can expect delivery in 8-10 weeks. On December 29, the wait time for the model was shortened from 10-12 weeks to 9-11 weeks.