Target’s earnings miss has rattled already-feeble markets
U.S. stock index futures slumped further on Thursday, following the worst slide in close to two years for the S&P 500 index in the previous session.
What’s happening
- Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00 fell 356 points, or 1.1%, to 31,084.
- Futures on the S&P 500 ES00 were down 47.75 points, or 1.2%, to 3,875.
- Futures on the Nasdaq 100 NQ00 decreased 159 points, or 1.3%, to 11,776.50.
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA fell 1,165 points, or 3.6%, the S&P 500 SPX declined 4%, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 4.7%. The drop on Wednesday for the Dow and S&P 500 was the most since June 11, 2020. The intraday low of the year of 3,858.87 is in danger of being tested.
What’s driving markets
Shares of retailer Kohl’s Corp. KSS, which fell 11% in Wednesday’s selloff, was lower in premarket trade Thursday after reporting a wide miss on profit and sales.
Target’s TGT earnings miss, a day after rival retailer Walmart WMT also disappointed with its quarterly results, has unnerved investors already rattled by the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate-hike campaign.
The tumble came “as a big drop in profits by America’s retail behemoths raised the specter of diminishing margins, in what could only be the start of high inflation eating into corporate earnings,” said Raffi Boyadjian, lead investment analyst at XM, in a note.
Analysts noted that Target’s results showed consumers moving away from stay-at-home goods like furniture and televisions. Airline stocks also were caught up in Wednesday’s slide, but the U.S. Global Jets ETF JETS has outperformed the market this year, a sign of rising demand for services.
The U.S. retail sales report released this week showed spending at bars and restaurants up nearly 20% from year-earlier levels, or more than double the overall retail spending rate.
In U.S. economic data Thursday, first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose 21,000 last week to 218,000. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s regional manufacturing index dropped sharply to 2.6 in May from 17.6 a month earlier.
April existing home sales and April leading indicators were due later Thursday morning.
Companies in focus
- Tesla Inc. TSLA shares were lower after Wedbush analyst Dan Ives slashed his price target by 29%, citing “hard to ignore” headwinds in China, as COVID-related lockdowns have reduced demand. Ives reiterated the outperform rating he’s had on the electric vehicle maker since April 2021 but cut his price target to $1,000 from $1,400.
- Spirit Airlines Inc. SAVE on Thursday said its board has unanimously determined that JetBlue Airways Corp.’s JBLU $30-a-share cash offer isn’t in the best interest of the airline and its shareholders, urging the latter to reject the tender launched by JetBlue earlier this week. Spirit had already reiterated earlier in May its support for the merger deal with Frontier Group Holdings Inc. ULCC, that it had agreed before JetBlue made its offer. Spirit shares were down 2%, while JetBlue shares edged down 0.6% and Frontier was off 0.4%.
What other assets are doing
- The yield on the 10-year Treasury note BX:TMUBMUSD10Y fell 6.5 basis points to 2.826%. Yields and debt prices move opposite each other.
- The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY dropped 0.5%.
- Bitcoin BTCUSD was up 2.5% near $29,500.
- Oil futures fell, with the U.S. benchmark CL down 1.8% near $105 a barrel. Gold futures GC00 ticked up 0.7% to trade below $1,830 an ounce.
- The Stoxx Europe 600 XX:SXXP fell 1.9%, while London’s FTSE 100 UK:UKX was off 2.1%.
- The Shanghai Composite CN:SHCOMP rose 0.4%, while the Hang Seng Index HK:HSI dropped 2.5% in Hong Kong and Japan’s Nikkei 225 JP:NIK shed 1.9%.