2 Hours Ago
S&P 500 closes flat, traders await jobs report
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading on June 03, 2024 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
The S&P 500 closed near the flatline on Thursday, with investors largely in wait-and-see mode ahead of the jobs report on Friday.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.02% to close at 5,352.96, while the Nasdaq Composite pulled back 0.09% to 17,173.12. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 78.84 points, or 0.20%, to finish the session at 38,886.17.
— Brian Evans
2 Hours Ago
Strong market fundamentals justify a further equity rally, UBS says
The S&P 500 may have notched yet another record high on Wednesday afternoon, but Mark Haefele sees no near-term signs of the rally stopping.
“Fixed income remains our most preferred asset class, but we also believe stocks can advance further,” wrote the chief investment officer of UBS Global Wealth Management. “In our base case, we see the S&P 500 reaching 5,500 by year-end amid Fed rate cuts, robust profit growth, and the secular growth trend brought by artificial intelligence (AI).”
Haefele specified that he still expects 50 basis points of rate cuts by the end of the year, starting sometime in September. He added that he is strategically exposed to technology assets, but also sees an opportunity emerging in small-cap names as the U.S. central bank begins to ease monetary conditions.
— Lisa Kailai Han
3 Hours Ago
Friday may bring ‘longest stretch of sub-4% unemployment since the early 1950s,’ Deutsche Bank says
An employer representative at a Veteran Employment and Resource Fair in Long Beach, California, on Jan. 9, 2024.
Eric Thayer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report for May is forecast by economists to show U.S. unemployment at 3.9%, according to FactSet. If the jobless rate comes in at 3.9% or less, that will prove “the longest stretch of sub-4% unemployment since the early 1950s,” according to a research report this week by Deutsche Bank macro strategist Henry Allen.
U.S. unemployment was below 4% for 27 consecutive months in the late 1960s, but the last time there was a run of 28 months or more was the early 1950s, Allen wrote. “Time will tell if the early-1950s offer a good parallel, but if these similarities do hold, there could be a lot of scope for optimism. In particular, low unemployment has often been a spur to productivity growth, as firms find it more difficult to hire workers and become more focused on helping their existing staff to be more productive. Given the growth of AI in our own time, this suggests there could well be some upside risk to economic growth over the years ahead.”
The early 1950s saw a run of 35 months when unemployment was below 4%. That has never been exceeded since.
— Scott Schnipper
4 Hours Ago
Nvidia RSI above 70 nearly 50% of the time, Jefferies traders point out
Nvidia’s rally this year has truly been unrelenting, so much so that its relative strength index — a measure used by traders to gauge a stock’s momentum — has been above 70 nearly half the time this year, according to traders at Jefferies.
RSI above 70 typically suggests a stock is overbought, a sign it may be due for a pullback. The traders pointed out that is the most amount of time a tech, media and telecom stock has been in overbought territory in more than five years.
— Fred Imbert
5 Hours Ago
Stocks making the biggest moves midday
People walk past a Lululemon department store in New York City on June 5, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
These are some of the stocks making big moves midday:
- Five Below — Shares of Five Below sank 12% after the discount retailer fell short of Wall Street’s first-quarter revenue estimates and offered disappointing guidance. For the current quarter, Five Below said it expects between $830 million and $850 million in revenue, while analysts polled by LSEG expected $883 million.
- Salesforce — The stock moved 2.7% higher following news that Salesforce board member and co-CEO of activist investor ValueAct, Mason Morfit, has increased his stake in the software company to just under $1 billion. The move was made earlier this week and comes just days after the company reported its first revenue miss since 2006.
- Lululemon — Shares added 5.7% following the athletic apparel retailer’s earnings beat. Profit per share came in at $2.54 versus the $2.38 expected from analysts polled by LSEG. Revenue was $2.21 billion, topping the consensus estimate of $2.19 billion. Lululemon issued weak guidance for the current quarter, but its full-year earnings per share guidance was above expectations.
Click here to see the full list.
— Sean Conlon
Read More: Stock market news for June 6, 2024