Stock Market Today Mid-Morning Updates
On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down by 20 points as investors anticipate yet another slew of high-profile corporate earnings this week. This also comes after major banks like Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) reported better than expected earnings last week. Today, China’s first-quarter gross domestic product grew faster than expected at 4.8%. This is despite the impact of Covid lockdowns in March.
Today, Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR) is down by over 30% after it halted all trials involving its key cancer drug. The company says that its experimental treatment did not produce the desired results in multiple studies. Wendy’s (NASDAQ: WEN) was also down today after BMO Capital downgraded the restaurant to market perform from outperform. BMO says that Wendy’s is less well-positioned for a tighter consumer spending environment than some of its industry peers.
Among the Dow Jones leaders, shares of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) are down by 0.12% today while Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is up by 0.44%. Meanwhile, Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Nike (NYSE: NKE) are trading lower on Monday. Among the Dow financial leaders, Visa (NYSE: V) is up by 0.80% while JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is also up by 0.63%.
Shares of EV leader Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) are up by 0.24% on Monday. Rival EV companies like Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN) are down by 4.80%. Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) is also down by 3.66% today. Chinese EV leaders like Nio (NYSE: NIO) and Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV) are trading lower today.
Dow Jones Today: Treasury Yields Rises To Highest In More Than Three-Years.
Following the stock market opening on Monday, the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq are trading lower at 0.05%, 0.08%, and 0.20% 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 down by 0.06%.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose today to a level not seen in more than three years. This comes after the U.S. Census Bureau reported a 0.5% gain in March, a little less than the 0.6% gain expected by the Dow Jones. The biggest driver of sales came from gas stations. This rise could also be coming from last week’s consumer price index, which showed that prices were up by 8.5% in March compared with a year ago.
Russian forces also continue its invasion of Ukraine. Today, Russian missiles hit Lviv in western Ukraine, killing at least 7 people according to Ukrainian officials. Mariupol, the besieged eastern city has refused to surrender to Russia. The mayor of Mariupol said that 10,000 civilians have died in the city. Analysts say that this is a similar approach that Russia has used in the past to Chechnya in 1999.
Homebuilder Sentiment Drops For Fourth Month Straight
Builder confidence in the market for new single-family homes fell 2 points to 77 in April. This is according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). This comes as sharply rising mortgage rates are taking its toll on the nation’s homebuilders. “Despite low existing inventory, builders report sales traffic and current sales conditions have declined to their lowest points since last summer as a sharp jump in mortgage rates and persistent supply chain disruptions continue to unsettle the housing market,” said NAHB Chairman Jerry Konter, a builder and developer from Savannah, Georgia.
[Read More] Top Stock Market News For Today April 18, 2022
Twitter Stock Once Again In The Limelight Following News Of Elon Musk’s Possible Tender Offer
In the news today is Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) again. For the most part, the focus on TWTR stock is due to its dealings with Elon Musk. Namely, the Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO’s flashy battle to acquire the social media firm is raging on for the third consecutive week. In brief, today’s action stems from an obscure tweet from Musk over the weekend. His post reads, “Love Me Tender.” Should the speculations be true, we could see Musk make an offer directly to shareholders to buy out shares of the company.
More importantly, this comes days after Twitter’s board of directors made a decision to implement a new shareholder rights plan. Through the current plan, shareholders can “purchase, at the then-current exercise price, additional shares of common stock having a then-current market value of twice the exercise price of the right.” The triggering incident for such a contingency is in the case of an entity owning 15% or more of the company via transactions not approved by the board. As it stands, many are dubbing this move a “poison pill” strategy.
In theory, this could be the company’s means of preventing an unapproved takeover from Musk. For one thing, it would buy the board more time to consider his purchase offer. As of last Thursday, the board is still evaluating the $43 billion, $54.20 per share offer from Musk. Safe to say, TWTR stock will likely continue to draw plenty of attention in the stock market now.
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BAC Stock Gains After BofA Beats Profit Estimates In Latest Quarterly Release
At the same time, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) or BofA for short, is also making headlines in the stock market now. Notably, this is thanks to the company releasing its latest quarterly financials. Diving in, BofA is looking at earnings of $0.80 per share on revenue of $23.33 billion for the quarter. For reference, this is versus Wall Street’s estimates of $0.75 and $23.2 billion respectively. After considering the recent challenging business environment for some of its banking industry peers, this is commendable.
Speaking on all this in further detail is CFO Alastair Borthwick. He writes, “First-quarter results were strong despite challenging markets and volatility, which we believe reflect the value of our `Responsible Growth’ strategy.” Borthwick continues by saying that “Asset quality continued to remain strong with net charge-offs about half of the year-ago quarter amount.” On top of all that, BofA also adds that it is seeing “ongoing organic growth,” across its key businesses throughout the quarter. Overall, the bank believes that all this alongside “good expense management.” As a result, BAC stock is now trading higher by over 2% at today’s opening bell.
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