Early Look

Monday, April 8, 2024

U.S. futures were little changed overnight, pointing to a slightly lower open ahead of another big week of inflation data coming up, with the (CPI) consumer prices (4/10) and producer price index (4/11) expected later this week along with the unofficial start to Q2 earnings Friday (4/12) with big banks JPM, WGC, Citi. For last week, the S&P 500 fell -0.95%, the Nasdaq composite declined -0.8%, and the Dow industrials dropped- 2.27% despite big gains on Friday after a stronger nonfarm payrolls report and rise in average wages. Treasury yields are building on last week gains, rising 6.6 bps to 4.44% for the 10-yr after gaining 18.5bps last week to its highest-level year to date while the 2-yr added 12.2bps to 4.730%.U.S. WTI crude oil futures and Brent both settled at their highest levels since late October on Friday and gold made it another all-time high as well at $2,345 an ounce Friday (and adding to it this morning). Energy was the best S&P sector last week (XLE), rising +3.8% while Healthcare (XLV) fell -3% (after HMO weakness to start the week), and 2% declines for REITs (XLRE), Staples (XLP), and Consumer Discretionary (XLY). The CBOE Volatility index (VIX) is holding above 16 after closing at its highest level since last October. In Asian markets, The Nikkei Index jumped 354 points to 39.347, the Shanghai Index fell -22 points to 3,047, and the Hang Seng Index edged higher 8 points to 16,732. In Europe, the German DAX is up 100 points to 18.279, while the FTSE 100 is up about 10 points to 7,920.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 307.06 points, or 0.80%, to 38,904.04.
• The Nasdaq Composite gained 199.44 points, or 1.24%, to 16,248.52.
• The Russell 2000 Index advanced 9.64 points, or 0.47% to 2,063.47.

• 7:00 PM ET                   Fed’s Kashkari Participates in Town Hall Meeting

• Earnings After the Close: None

• Goldman Sachs Private Company Software and Internet Conference, 4/8-/49, in San Francisco
• Needham 23rd Annual Healthcare Conference, 4/8-4/11 (virtual)

• Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his emergency minister to the Orenburg-region city of Orsk, where an oil refinery halted operations and thousands of people were evacuated due to major flooding.

• Kimberly-Clark (KMB) will sell its personal protective equipment business to Australia’s Ansell Ltd. (ANSLF) for $640M in cash.
• Spirit Airlines, Inc. (SAVE) announced that it reached an agreement with Airbus to defer all aircraft on orders that are scheduled to be delivered in the second quarter of 2025 through the end of 2026 to 2030-2031.

• Ducommun Inc (DCO) received an unsolicited, non-binding takeover interest from private investment firm Albion River for $60 per share in cash, sending shares higher pre-mkt.
• TotalEnergies (TTE) has agreed to acquire the 20% interest held by Lewis Energy Group in the Dorado leases operated by EOG Resources (EOG) (80%) in the Eagle Ford shale gas play, increasing its natural gas production capacity in Texas.
• China’s People Bank of China (PBoC) bought gold for a 17th month as Prices Hit Record as bullion held by the People’s Bank of China rose to 72.74 million fine troy ounces last month; The country’s foreign exchange reserves rose to $3.2457 trillion by the end of March, the highest since December 2021.
• A massive container ship lost propulsion power in the waters around New York City and was brought to a rest near the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge Friday night — less than two weeks after failure on another massive cargo vessel caused it to smash into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge.

• Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) announced that its experimental schizophrenia therapy KarXT, acquired as part of its recent Karuna Therapeutics buyout, indicated a well-tolerated safety profile in a Phase 3 program. Citing data from its EMERGENT-4 and EMERGENT-5 trials, the Princeton, New Jersey-based pharma giant said KarXT was not associated with weight gain, a side effect commonly seen with antipsychotic use in schizophrenia.
• Inozyme Pharma (INZY) announced positive topline safety, pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and exploratory efficacy data from the company’s ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical trials of INZ-701 in adults with ABCC6 Deficiency and ENPP1 Deficiency.
• iTeos Therapeutics (ITOS) announced a poster presentation of preclinical data on EOS-984, a potential first-in-class small molecule inhibitor targeting the equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 in oncology, at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) said it has received FDA approval to expand the current labeling for its CAR-T cell therapy, Carvykti, developed in partnership with Legend Biotech (LEGN), to include adults with the blood cancer multiple myeloma in an earlier-line setting.
• Ocugen, Inc. (OCGN) announces U.S. FDA clearance of IND amendment to initiate ocu400 phase 3 clinical trial — first gene therapy to enter phase 3 with a broad retinitis pigmentosa indication.
• Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN) announced the oral plenary session presentation of positive pivotal data from the Phase 1/2 LINKER-MM1 trial of linvoseltamab in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024 in San Diego.

• Applied Material (AMAT) upgraded to Overweight and downgrading Global Foundry (GFS) to Neutral at Cantor while raising price targets for WDC, AMAT, ASML, NXPI, MU, KLAC, LRCX, QCOM, and TXN and have reduced our price targets for INTC and GFS.
• Apple Inc. (AAPL) said it has accepted European Union demands to stop preventing music-streaming apps from informing users of deals away from the company’s App Store, although it will still charge a fee on those sales.
• Perion Network (PERI) cuts FY24 revenue view to $590M-$610M from $860M-$880M (below consensus $868.39M) and cuts FY24 adjusted EBITDA view to $78M-82M from $178M-$182M.
• United Microelectronics (UMC) March revenue grew 2.7% to NT$18.17B.
• Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG) decided not to acquire French record label Believe SA, it said in a statement.