AP – Wall Street tipped toward losses before the open yesterday as markets gird for another busy week of corporate earnings reports.
Futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.4 per cent before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones industrials ticked down 0.2 per cent.
Boeing rose 3.1 per cent after the troubled aerospace giant offered the union representing striking machinists a new contract proposal over the weekend.
The proposed deal would provide bigger pay raises and bonuses in a bid to end a costly walkout that has crippled production of airplanes for more than a month.
The union plans to hold a ratification vote tomorrow, the same day Boeing reports its third-quarter earnings.
South Korea. PHOTO: AP
Kenvue, the consumer health brands company that Johnson & Johnson spun off last year, climbed 8.2 per cent on a Wall Street Journal report that activist investor Starboard Value had taken a significant stake in the maker of Band-Aids and Tylenol.
Before yesterday’s premarket rally, Kenvue shares had lost about a fifth of their value since the company started trading publicly in May of 2023.
Companies reporting earnings later this week include General Motors, Tesla, Coca-Cola, and Southwest and American airlines.
In Asia, shares were mixed yesterday, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sinking 1.5 per cent to 20,869.39, while the Shanghai Composite gained 0.2 per cent to 3,268.11. The A-share index of the smaller market in Shenzhen picked up 1.6 per cent.
China cut its one-year and five-year Loan Prime Rates, which are reference rates for lending. Lower rates can help reduce pressure on borrowers, particularly property developers that have suffered following a crackdown on excessive borrowing several years ago. But any impact on market sentiment appeared to be short-lived.
Given that the main constrain is weak demand, the “heavy lifting” will have to come from government spending, Zichun Huang of Capital Economics said in a report. China’s Finance Ministry has pledged to ramp up such outlays in coming months, “However, we are still sceptical that fiscal easing will be large enough to deliver anything more than a modest and short-lived pick-up in activity.”
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index edged 0.1 per cent lower to 38,954.60, while the Kospi in Seoul advanced 0.4 per cent to 2,604.92. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.7 per cent higher at 8,344.40.
In Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 tumbled one per cent and Germany’s DAX was down 0.9 per cent. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.2 per cent.
Oil prices climbed after tumbling last week.
Early yesterday, US benchmark crude was up USD1.48 at USD70.17 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up USD1.33 to USD74.39 per barrel.
The dollar rose to JPY149.91 from JPY149.57 late Friday. The yen has weakened recently on expectations that the pace of interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan may be slower than earlier thought.
The euro slipped to USD1.0852 from USD1.0866 late Friday.
