To The Moon

U.S. stock futures were lower on Wednesday as traders assess the state of the global economy following a losing session. Wednesday’s moves come as concern over higher rates simmered once again.

Market Snapshot

At 7:45 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 11 points, or 0.03%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 3 points, or 0.07%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 9.75 points, or 0.07%.

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Pre-Market Movers

​$Johnson & Johnson(JNJ)$ — Stocks rose nearly 3% in premarket trading after it proposed to pay at least $8.9 billion to settle claims that its talcum powder causes cancer.

$Alphabet(GOOG)$, $NVIDIA Corp(NVDA)$ — The former said its systems are both faster and more power-efficient than comparable systems from the latter. $Alphabet(GOOG)$ gained over 1% while $NVIDIA Corp(NVDA)$ fell over 1%.

$C3.ai, Inc.(AI)$ — Stocks continued to fall over 3% in premarket trading and crashed nearly 30% in 2 days. Short-seller Kerrisdale Capital published a letter to its auditors alleging a series of accounting irregularities.

$FedEx(FDX)$ — Stocks rose nearly 3% in premarket trading. The company is aimed to cut $4B by the close of 2025 and is a key focus for Raj Subramaniam, who acceded to the role of CEO in 2022.

$Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$ — Stocks rose over 2% in premarket trading as the company and Microsoft expanded their cloud partnership to the public sector.

$AstraZeneca PLC(AZN)$ — Stocks rose nearly 2% in premarket trading as its cancer drug Combo meets goal in late-stage Ovarian cancer study.

$Simply Good Foods Company(SMPL)$ — Stocks fell over 4% in premarket trading. It reaffirmed full year net sales outlook that is expected to increase slightly greater than its long-term algorithm of 4-6%.

$Smart Global Holdings Inc.(SGH)$ — Stocks remained flat. It reported upbeat earnings for its fiscal second quarter, while sales missed estimates. The company also issued weak guidance.

Market News

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said Tuesday that while the economy appears on a path toward slowing down, the central bank likely has more rate rises ahead of it.

$Apple(AAPL)$ sales executive Doug Beck is leaving the iPhone maker for a senior role at the US Defense Department, extending a wave of key departures at the company.

$Amazon.com(AMZN)$ laid off about 100 employees in its video-game divisions as part of its broader cutbacks, affecting workers at Prime Gaming, Game Growth and the company’s San Diego studio.

$Alphabet(GOOG)$ on Tuesday released new details about the supercomputers it uses to train its artificial intelligence models, saying the systems are both faster and more power-efficient than comparable systems from Nvidia Corp.

A top-ranked advisor team that oversaw $10.8 billion at $First Republic Bank(FRC)$ has jumped to Morgan Stanley, adding to the list of advisors who have exited the troubled bank recently.

About 5,000 $General Motors(GM)$ salaried workers took buyouts to leave the company, putting the company well on the way to hitting a $2 billion cost-cutting target, the automaker's chief financial officer said Tuesday.

$Johnson & Johnson(JNJ)$ has proposed to pay up to $8.9 billion over 25 years to settle claims connected with cosmetic-talc litigation.

Kerrisdale Capital Management, which has publicly disclosed that it’s betting that C3 shares will fall in value, said it sent a letter directly to $C3.ai, Inc.(AI)$’s auditor, Deloitte, to highlight its charge of accounting and disclosure issues.