U.S. stocks pushed higher at the close of a choppy session on Wednesday as investors considered a slew of company warnings on the impact of inflation to earnings alongside the Federal Reserve’s latest communications about using their policies to rein in rising prices. The Fed’s May meeting minutes reaffirmed that central bank officials saw additional 50 basis point rate hikes as appropriate over the next couple meetings.
The S&P 500 wobbled but then gained Wednesday afternoon after the release of the Fed minutes, which also noted that more aggressive tightening and “a restrictive stance of policy may well become appropriate depending on the evolving economic outlook and risks to the outlook.” The Dow and Nasdaq each also rose. Treasury yields mostly declined, and the benchmark 10-year yield fell to hold just above 2.75%.
Investors this week have also eyed a growing list of companies citing the effects that inflation have had and will have on results going forward. Retailers including from Walmart and Target last week to Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) this week slashed their earnings forecasts for the year as the companies absorbed rising goods and transportation costs. And elsewhere, Snap (SNAP) warned earlier this week that it would post weaker-than-expected sales and profit results this year as the macroeconomic environment “deteriorated further and faster than anticipated.” This was taken as a harbinger of softer results for a bevy of ad-driven tech stocks, sending the Nasdaq Composite to its lowest close since Nov. 2020 on Tuesday.
As the grim company guidance piles up, Wall Street has been looking for signs that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes and monetary policy tightening will achieve bringing down inflationary pressures. The Fed’s minutes from its early May meeting Wednesday afternoon reaffirmed that most monetary policymakers were considering rolling out additional 50 basis point rate hikes at the next two Fed meetings. The Fed raised rates by 50 basis points earlier this month for the first time since 2000, after having raised rates by just 25 basis point earlier this year.
“The challenge right now is we’re in this new chapter of the inflation story. If you’ll recall, last year it started with whether it’s transitory — turns out, it wasn’t. Then it became about the Fed at the end of last year and earlier this year, whether or not they would tighten significantly. And they did, and now all that’s priced in,” James Liu Clearnomics founder and CEO, told Yahoo Finance Live. “And now what the market is looking at is are basically the fundamentals around how inflation affects corporate profitability and consumer demand.”
And beyond the domestic concerns, a myriad of international concerns — from Russia’s war in Ukraine, to China’s ongoing COVID outbreak — have further infused volatility into the market.
“The Fed can’t really do anything about what’s going on between Russia and Ukraine, they can’t really do anything about China’s COVID zero policies … and a lot of traders are starting to get concerned,” Shawn Cruz, TD Ameritrade head trading strategist, told Yahoo Finance Live.
“The way the market to me is reacting to that, is one, there’s de-leveraging going on. There are some liquidation events out there as well, and that is one of those ‘selling begets more selling’ type of environments. And then the other one is, there’s just not enough confidence out there to come in there and meaningfully put money back to work,” he added. “Once you start to see leverage start going back up, cash coming in from the sidelines, that to me would be an indication that there is at least a little bit more certainty in the outlook for a lot of these people on the sidelines to come back in.”
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4:05 p.m. ET: Stocks end choppy session higher after Fed minutes: Nasdaq gains 1.5%, Dow adds 192 points, or 0.6%
Here were the main moves in markets as of 4:05 p.m. ET:
Gold (GC=F): -$11.80 (-0.63%) to $1,853.60 per ounce
10-year Treasury (^TNX): -1.1 bps to yield 2.7490%
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2:15 p.m. ET: Fed minutes show support for another two half-point rate hikes while adding ‘a restrictive stance of policy’ could become appropriate
The Federal Reserve’s latest meeting minutes Wednesday afternoon reaffirmed Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s prior assertions that the central bank was weighing two more half-point rate hikes.
“Most participants judged that 50 basis point increases in the target range would likely be appropriate at the next couple of meetings,” according to the minutes. “Many participants assessed that the Committee’s previous communications had been helpful in shifting market expectations regarding the policy outlook into better alignment with the Committee’s assessment and had contributed to the tightening of financial conditions.”
The Fed left room for further policy decisions to be informed by incoming data on the economy, which has recently softened. However, it also emphasized that its primary goal remained on bringing down inflation, and that as a result, a “restrictive stance of policy” could be needed.
“Participants agreed that the economic outlook was highly uncertain and that policy decisions should be data dependent and focused on returning inflation to the Committee’s 2% goal while sustaining strong labor market conditions,” the minutes noted. “At present, participants judged that it was important to move expeditiously to a more neutral monetary policy stance. They also noted that a restrictive stance of policy may well become appropriate depending on the evolving economic outlook and the risks to the outlook.”
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11:11 a.m. ET: Stocks extend gains, Nasdaq rises by 1%
Here were the main moves in markets as of 11:11 a.m. ET:
Gold (GC=F): -$13.90 (-0.75%) to $1,851.50 per ounce
10-year Treasury (^TNX): -2.6 bps to yield 2.7340%
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9:12 a.m. ET: Durable goods orders disappoint in April
U.S. durable goods orders decelerated in April and were downwardly revised in March, offering an at least early sign that businesses may be pulling back on investments as economic uncertainties mount.
Orders for durable goods, or manufactured products intended to last at least three years, rose by 0.3% in April compared to March, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. This came in below the 0.6% rate consensus economists were expecting, according to Bloomberg data. In March, durable goods orders rose by 0.6%, with this rate revised down from the 1.1% previously reported.
Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft also missed expectations, rising by 0.3% in April versus the 0.5% anticipated. This metric rose by 1.1% in March, and serves as a closely watched proxy for business investment. Still, non-defense capital goods shipments excluding aircraft, which factors into GDP, rose by a better-than-expected 0.8% last month.
“It’s entirely possible that the recent slowing is nothing more than a temporary reaction to the spike in energy prices; firms might be waiting to see how consumers respond,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in an email about the report. “So far, we see no evidence of any hit — housing excepted — but we also can’t rule out the idea higher rates are directly causing some capex [capital expenditures] to be deferred, even though firms are sitting on huge piles of cash accumulated during the pandemic.”
“For now, a decent increase in capital spending on equipment in the second quarter seems assured, given the lags from previous strength in orders, but the outlook for H2 has become a bit more cloudy,” he added.
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7:55 a.m. ET: Dick’s Sporting Goods becomes latest retailer to slash full-year outlook given ‘evolving macroeconomic conditions’
Dick’s Sporting Goods shares sank by more than 14% Wednesday morning after the retailer became one of the latest to lower its full-year earnings and sales guidance as economic uncertainty resurged.
The sporting goods retailer said it now sees adjusted earnings totaling between $9.15 and $11.70 per share for the 2023 fiscal year, with this range coming in well below the $11.70 to $13.10 a share seen previously. Comparable store sales will likely fall between 2% and 8% this year, the company added, compared to a prior outlook for sales to come in between unchanged and down 4%. Dick’s Sporting Goods said it updated its outlook “to reflect the impact of evolving macroeconomic conditions,” according to its earnings release Wednesday morning.
Following the release, the stock was on track to post a sixth straight day of losses, or its longest losing streak since early Dec. 2021, as shares fell in sympathy with other major retailers over the past week.
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7:23 a.m. ET: Stock futures edge lower
Here’s where markets were trading Wednesday morning:
S&P 500 futures (ES=F): -5.25 points (-0.13%) to 3,935.25
Dow futures (YM=F): -55 points (-0.17%) to 31,825.00
Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): -9.5 points (-0.08%) to 11,761.50
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 23: Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on May 23, 2022 in New York City. After a week of steep losses, markets were up in Monday morning trading. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
