Stock Market Today Mid-Morning Updates
On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up by over 170 points after closing to one of its worst weekly performances last week since the pandemic started. In focus today would be Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who will be giving his semiannual testimony on monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee. This also comes one day after he told the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday that the central bank has the resolve to bring inflation down after it has surged to 40-year highs.
Shares of Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) are up today after Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) bought an additional 9.6 million shares of Occidental Petroleum. This would raise Berkshire’s stake in the oil company to 16.3%. WeWork (NYSE: WE) is also up by 6% today after Credit Suisse initiated coverage on the stock with an “Outperform” rating. Shares of Accenture (NYSE: ACN) are also in focus today after it beat quarterly revenue forecasts. Earnings, however, were affected by the cost of the company exiting Russia.
Among the Dow Jones leaders, shares of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) are up by 1.35% today while Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is also up by 1.36%. Meanwhile, Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Nike (NYSE: NKE) are trading mixed on Thursday. Among the Dow financial leaders, Visa (NYSE: V) is up by 1.15% while JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is down by 0.91%
Shares of EV leader Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) are down by 0.79% on Thursday. Rival EV companies like Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN) are up by 0.26%. Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) is up by 2.50% today. Chinese EV leaders like Nio (NYSE: NIO) and Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV) are trading mixed today.
Dow Jones Today: U.S. Treasury Yields Falls On Increasing Recession Fears; Big Oil Summoned To White House
Following the stock market opening on Thursday, the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq are trading higher at 0.72%, 0.59%, and 0.92% respectively. Among exchange-traded funds, the Nasdaq 100 tracker Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ) is up by 0.96% while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SPY) is also up by 0.77%.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield moved lower to 3.05% today. This is after the central bank announced that it is strongly committed to bringing down soaring inflation. Many parties are increasingly worried that aggressive monetary tightening could tip the economy into a recession. Today, major U.S. oil refiners will meet with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about how to lower record-high gas prices squeezing American consumers.
U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Moved Downwards Last Week
Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits slid lower last week as labor market conditions remained tight. Initial claims fell 2,000 to 229,000 for the week that ended on June 18, 2022. Economists polled by Reuters had estimated 227,000 applications for the latest week. On top of that, the overall labor market also remains tight. For reference, there were 11.4 million job openings at the end of April.
[Read More] Top Stock Market News For Today June 23, 2022
Snowflake Stock Jumps Following Notable Upgrade From J.P. Morgan Analysts
Among the major head turners in the stock market today is Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW). Overall, this cloud computing-based data warehousing firm continues to draw attention from analysts across the board. Notably, SNOW stock is currently gaining by over 8% at the opening bell today because of this. Getting right to it, JPM analyst Mark Murphy provided a rosy update on the cloud computing firm’s stock earlier today. For starters, the analyst now has an Overweight rating on SNOW stock, a sizable jump from its previous Neutral rating. Also, Murphy is retaining JPM’s per-share price target of $165. With this update in mind, SNOW stock would be coming into focus among tech investors in the stock market today.
More importantly, investors may also be focusing on Murphy’s reasoning behind the upgrade. He notes that JPM’s current bullish opinion on SNOW stock is thanks to its latest Chief Information Officer (CIO) survey. To highlight, the firm polled 142 CIOs that are spending over $100 billion in terms of IT spending. From this data, JPM found that Snowflake is the top name in the “installed base spending intentions,” and “emerging companies whose vision most impressed respondents,” categories. Not to mention, Murphy also notes that the firm is “incrementally confident,” in Snowflake’s capability in reaching “material free cash flow generation.” With Snowflake seemingly becoming a more secular name amongst organizational IT spend managers, SNOW stock would be in focus.
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Li Auto Stock Surges After China State Council Reveals Plans To Boost Automotive Sales Nationwide
Shares of Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI), Xpeng, and Nio are gaining traction today following an update from Chinese officials. On the whole, this movement in the Chinese EV scene follows a video-conference hosted by President Xi and Premier Li Keqiang. Through which, both officials made several key announcements regarding plans to bolster the Chinese economy. The likes of which President Xi notes is to help China achieve its economic goals for 2022. According to an official English-language state media readout, President Xi notes, “We will step up macroeconomic policy adjustment, and adopt more forceful measures to deliver the economic and social development goals for the whole year and minimize the impact of COVID-19.”
Regarding Chinese EV’s, investors are likely reacting to Premier Li’s mentions about bolstering automotive sales. According to the Chinese Premier, the local government is looking to enforce measures that will bump spending in this sector of the economy. By the government’s estimates, this could lead to an increase of about $29.85 billion (200 billion yuan) this year. According to existing data from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) this would add up to 0.5% of China’s total retail sales in 2021. As a result of all this, LI stock, NIO stock, and XPEV stock would all be in the limelight today. While firms like Tesla continue to face issues with production domestically, government-related tailwinds could make Chinese EV stocks more attractive for some.
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