Stock Market Today Mid-Morning Updates
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up by over 120 points after declining in the last 4 sessions in a row. The S&P 500 for instance, officially closed in bear market territory on Monday, normally defined as a decline of 20% or more from its prior high. Investors also fear a cryptocurrency collapse after crypto lending firm Celsius on Monday paused all account withdrawals, sparking fears that it may go bust. The repercussions could be huge as other parts of the crypto market could collapse on Celsius’ pausing of withdrawals.
Meanwhile, oil and natural gas company, Continental Resources (NYSE: CLR) is surging higher in the stock market today. This came after the company received a $70 per share takeover bid from Chairman Harold Hamm and his family. On the other hand, National Vision (NASDAQ: EYE) is among the retail companies in focus today. The optical products retailer is surging higher following news that it will be added to the S&P SmallCap 600 Index. Such inclusion will be effective prior to the opening of trading on Thursday.
Among the Dow Jones leaders, shares of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) are up by 0.32% today while Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is also up by 0.09%. Meanwhile, Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Nike (NYSE: NKE) are trading mixed on Tuesday. Among the Dow financial leaders, Visa (NYSE: V) is up by 0.18% while JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is also up by 0.43%
Shares of EV leader Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) are down by 0.96% on Tuesday. Rival EV companies like Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN) are also up by 1.94%. Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) is up by0.71% today. Chinese EV leaders like Nio (NYSE: NIO) and Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV) are trading higher today as well.
Dow Jones Today: U.S. Treasury Yields Pushes Above 3.3%; Producer Price Index Rises Within Estimates
Following the stock market opening on Tuesday, the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq are trading higher at 0.11%, 0.08%, and 0.12% respectively. Among exchange-traded funds, the Nasdaq 100 tracker Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ) is up by 0.13% while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SPY) is also up by 0.10%.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield retreated from its 2011 highs after cooler-than-expected inflation data. It is currently at 3.31% after climbing to 3.39% and also recording its biggest move since 2020 in the previous session. The 2-year and 10-year Treasury yield curves also briefly inverted on Monday for the first time since April. This comes as investors braced for the prospect of aggressive monetary policy tightening to lower inflation. The inversion is often seen as an indicator of a recession.
The producer price index rose 0.8% for the month and 10.8% year-over-year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The PPI is a measure of the prices paid to producers of goods and services/ Excluding food, energy, and trade, so-called core PPI rose 0.5% in the month, slightly below the 0.6% estimate but an increase from the 0.4% reading in the previous month. The two PPI measures remained near their historic highs at 11.5% for headline and 7.1% for core, in March.
[Read More] Top Stock Market News For Today June 14, 2022
FedEx Stock Jumps Following Move To Hike Quarterly Dividends
In the news today is FedEx (NYSE: FDX). Overall, the logistics titan seems to be gaining traction among investors today thanks to its latest announcement. Notably, the company is hiking its quarterly dividend by 53%. In detail, FedEx’s board of directors are now declaring a $1.15 per share dividend on its common stock. This would represent a sizable $0.40 per share increase from its previous dividend of $0.75. According to the press release, the dividend is payable on July 11, 2022, to stockholders as of the close of business on June 27, 2022.
Providing some extra commentary on FedEx’s latest move is CFO Michael Lenz. He writes, “The increased dividend we announced today is the culmination of our Board’s thoughtful efforts over many months to ensure that our capital allocation strategy reflects our confidence in the trajectory of the business and increases returns for our stockholders. We look forward to sharing more detail on our strategy and long-term objectives at our investor day later this month.” Because of all this, FDX stock is now gaining by over 12% in the stock market today as investors focus on defensive plays.
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Oracle Stock Gains After Topping Wall Street Estimates Across The Board
Among the key names making waves in the stock market today would be Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). After yesterday’s closing bell, Oracle posted overall solid figures in its fourth fiscal quarter earnings release. According to the report, its total quarterly earnings per share is $1.54. Furthermore, the company’s total revenue for the quarter is $11.84 billion. To put things into perspective, this is against consensus Wall Street figures of $1.37 and $11.66 billion respectively. Because of all this, I could see investors tuning in to ORCL stock today. This would be understandable as markets look to recover from yesterday’s substantial losses.
Chiming in on the company’s commendable results for the quarter is CEO Safra Catz. She starts by saying, “We continued to improve our top-line results again this quarter with total revenue growing 10% in constant currency.” Catz adds, “These consistent increases in our quarterly revenue growth rate typically have been driven by our market-leading Fusion and NetSuite cloud applications. But this Q4, we also experienced a major increase in demand in our infrastructure cloud business—which grew 39% in constant currency. We believe that this revenue growth spike indicates that our infrastructure business has now entered a hyper-growth phase.” All in all, Oracle’s cloud infrastructure offerings continue to draw attention from new and old clients now. With Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) being among its main competitors, this would be a notable feat indeed.
If all that wasn’t enough, the company’s recent acquisition of Cerner would also be worth considering. Oracle now has access to Cerner’s digital information health care system portfolio. As a result of all this, ORCL stock is now up by over 8% at the opening bell today.
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