Stock Market Today Mid-Morning Updates
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up by over 200 points. This comes after hawkish remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Diving in, he says that inflation is much too high and vowed tough action on inflation, which he says could jeopardize the recovery. Powell also says that the Fed will continue to hike rates until inflation comes under control, and could get even more aggressive than last week’s increase, which marks the first increase in more than three years.
Also, Altria (NYSE: MO) is up by over 3% on today’s opening bell after Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) upgraded the company to a Buy rating from Neutral. Goldman points to Altria’s strong cash flow, high-profit margins, and attractive dividend amidst a current risk-off environment. Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA) shares are down by over 6% today after it said that it is investigating reports of a digital breach, with the authentication services provider saying it would provide more information in due time.
Among the Dow Jones leaders, shares of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) are up by 0.48% today while Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is also up by 0.32%. Meanwhile, Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Nike (NYSE: NKE) are trading higher on Tuesday. Among the Dow financial leaders, Visa (NYSE: V) is up by 0.41% while Goldman Sachs is also up by 1.77%.
Shares of EV leader Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) are up by 0.74% on Tuesday. Rival EV companies like Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN) are also up by 5.38%. Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) is up by 1.48% today. Chinese EV leaders like Nio (NYSE: NIO) and Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV) opened higher today.
Dow Jones Today: 10-year Treasury Yields Continues To Climb As Interest Rates Hike
Following the stock market opening on Tuesday, the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq are trading higher at 0.78%, 0.85%, and 1.14% respectively. Among exchange-traded funds, the Nasdaq 100 tracker Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ) is up by 1.01% while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SPY) is also up by 0.81%.
The 10-year Treasury yield continues to climb on Tuesday, hitting nearly 2.37%, its highest level since 2019. This could be also due to the Fed’s hawkish remarks yesterday. The Fed raised near-zero rates by 25 basis points last week and central bankers have signaled six more 25 basis point increases this year.
Today, Ukrainian forces said that they retook a strategically important suburb of Kyiv. However, Russian forces continue to squeeze other areas near the capital and their attack on the embattled southern port of Mariupol rages on. Explosions and bursts of gunfire shook Kyiv, and intensified artillery fire could be heard from the northwest.
[Read More] Top Stock Market News For Today March 22, 2022
Alibaba To Expand Share Repurchase Program To $25 Billion
Not too far off, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is also making headlines in the stock market now. For the most part, the company’s latest announcement could be the cause of this. In brief, Alibaba is planning to expand its share buyback plans from $15 billion to $25 billion. According to the company, the repurchase scheme will span a two-year timeframe through March 2024. To date, Alibaba has already bought back roughly 56.2 million of its American depositary shares (ADRs). The likes of which are worth about $9.2 billion. However, this would be under its previously announced buyback program.
In the larger scheme of things, Alibaba is making this move as BABA stock remains in a slump. To put things into perspective, BABA stock is currently down by over 60% from its 52-week high. Accordingly, it seems like the company remains confident about its ability to perform moving forward. In the words of Deputy CFO Toby Xu, “The upsized share buy-back underscores our confidence in Alibaba’s long-term, sustainable growth potential and value creation.” Adding to that, Xu also highlights Alibaba’s “robust financial health and expansion plans,” as a key reason for the buyback expansion. The question now is whether or not this can bolster investors’ confidence in the beaten-down Chinese tech firm. For today at least, this seems to be the case as BABA stock is currently gaining higher by over 10%.
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Nike Stock Jumps Following Overall Solid Earnings Beats In Latest Quarterly Release
In the retail space, Nike (NYSE: NKE) seems to be among the leading names today. Evidently, NKE stock is currently trading higher by over 5% at today’s opening bell. By and large, the reason for this is likely the company’s latest financial release. After yesterday’s market close, Nike beat consensus analyst forecasts across the board. It is currently boasting an earnings per share of $0.87 alongside revenue of $10.87 billion for the quarter. For comparison, this is against Wall Street’s expectations of $0.71 and $10.59 billion respectively. With such an impressive performance at face value, the hype around NKE stock now is already understandable.
Upon closer inspection, investors could also be reacting to the company’s operational updates as well. Namely, CEO John Donahoe highlights that demand for Nike’s offerings remains sky-high. So much so that, “Marketplace demand continues to significantly exceed available inventory supply.” Seeing as this comes a time where concerns over supply chain pressures were looming over Nike, investors appear to be somewhat relieved. Weighing in on this topic is Nike CFO Matthew Friend. He says, “We are focused on what we can control,” noting that there remain several dynamics “creating higher-levels of volatility.”
For the meantime, Nike will not be providing an outlook for the upcoming fiscal year. With the overall uncertainty in global markets now, such a play would make sense. Nevertheless, the company is reiterating its annual sales outlook for the current fiscal year, signaling mid-single-digits growth year-over-year. All in all, Nike is seeing persisting marketplace demand across its core operating regions and is taking a cautious approach to guidance.
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