U.S. stock futures fell in early trading on Wednesday as traders pored through the latest batch of corporate earnings.
Market Snapshot
At 7:55 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 205 points, or 0.61%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 31.75 points, or 0.79%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 146.75 points, or 1.23%.
Pre-Market Movers
Boeing – Boeing’s stock dropped about 1.7% premarket after the aircraft maker posted earnings and revenue that missed expectations, despite a demand recovery. The company cited labor and supply shortages for the disappointing numbers.
News Corp, Fox Corporation Class A— Shares of News Corp and Fox News were up 4.9% and 1.8%, respectively, after Rupert Murdochditched plans to merge the two companies, a proposition that met pushback from shareholders.
AT&T Inc — Shares were up 1.8% after the telecommunications giant’s fourth-quarter report came out Wednesday, showing an increase in subscribers but forecasting an annual profit below expectations.
Microsoft — Microsoft shares declined by nearly 3% after the software giant shared a dismal revenue forecast for the current quarter. The tech bellwether topped earnings expectations but said new business growth slowed in December, including within its Azure segment.
Omnicom — Shares of the global media firm were down 3% after it was disclosed that BlackRock Inc. added to its stake in the company, now owning 9.4% of shares.
Sunrun, SunPower— The solar companies both fell more than 3% after being downgraded by Barclays due to a potential slowdown in solar demand. Sunrun was downgraded to equal weight from overweight, while SunPower’s rating was slashed to underweight from equal weight.
Enphase Energy — Shares slid 4% following a downgrade from Piper Sandler to neutral from buy. The firm pointed to a potential reset in the U.S. residential solar market coming in 2023, while still acknowledging that the company has a strong product, management and position.
Capital One — The financial stock dropped 2.3% after Capital One reported disappointing quarterly results. The company earned $3.03 per share on revenue of $9.04 billion. Analysts polled by StreetAccount expected a profit of $3.87 per share on revenue of $9.07 billion. Net interest income also came in below expectations.
Intuitive Surgical – The maker of robotic surgical systems suffered a 7.7% drop after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that fell just short of expectations. The company cited a Covid-19 resurgence in China that negatively impacted procedure volumes in the area.
F5 Networks – Shares of the web application security company slid 3.7% after F5 reported revenue for its most recent quarter that missed analyst expectations and issued weaker-than-expected earnings guidance for the second quarter.
Market News
Microsoft's revenue rose 2% to $52.7 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with the average analyst estimate of $52.94 billion. Sales at Microsoft's More Personal Computing segment, which includes Windows, devices and search revenue, declined 19% to $14.2 billion as the PC market continued to shrink.
Hundreds of Amazon.com fulfillment center workers in the UK plan to strike on Wednesday as part of unprecedented industrial action by the company’s British employees.
Tesla Motors said on Tuesday it would invest more than $3.6 billion to build two new factories in the U.S. state of Nevada, including the first facility to mass produce its Semi electric heavy-duty truck.
Advertising spending on Twitter dropped by 71% in December, data from an advertising research firm showed, as top advertisers slashed their spending on the social-media platform after Elon Musk's takeover.
ASML Holding NV reported Q4 net profit of 1.82 billion euros, up from net profit of 1.77 billion euros in the same period a year earlier, on revenue of 6.43 billion euros.
Texas Instruments reported Q4 revenue of $4.67 billion, which beat average analyst estimates of $4.62 billion, it said its top-line results were down 11% sequentially and down 3% on a year-over-year basis.
Intuitive Surgical reported $1.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter,the firm had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.66 billion.It had a return on equity of 11.54% and a net margin of 22.52%. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 6.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.30 EPS.
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. launched its first rocket to space from the Virginia coast on Tuesday. At 6 p.m. local time, an Electron rocket took off from the company’s new launchpad, located on Wallops Island, Virginia, carrying a trio of small satellites to orbit.