Early Look

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

U.S. stock futures edging lower, adding to the late day pullback in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq (closed at lows in late day roll) as market await the FOMC policy meeting tomorrow afternoon. The Street remains overly optimistic the Fed will cut rates sooner, substantially, & start well before the election to not appear political. But last week’s higher than expected CPI (0.4% monthly 3.2% yearly) and PPI suggests otherwise as PCE tends to follow CPI’s trend. The Japanese yen weakened against the U.S. dollar after the Bank of Japan brought an end to the world’s last negative interest rate policy, raising interest rates for the first time in 17-years. The Japanese yen weakened 0.9% and fell past 150 against the dollar after the Bank of Japan stressed financial conditions will remain easy as they raised interest rates. In Asian markets, The Nikkei Index climbed 263 points to settle at 40,003, the Shanghai Index fell -22 points to 3,062, and the Hang Seng Index dropped -207 points to 16,529. In Europe, the German DAX is up 62 points to 17,995, while the FTSE 100 dips -10 points to 7,711. No Fed speakers today and one major data point today is Housing Starts/Building Permits at 8:30 AM. NVDA shares down slightly after partnerships, new chip announcements last night at its GTC event. Bitcoin prices tumbled over 6% to $63K, now down more than $10K from its all-time highs above $73K last week. Corporate stock news quiet with earnings season now behind us, and all eyes and ears on the Fed meeting results tomorrow (2-day meeting starts today).

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 75.66 points, or 0.20%, to 38,90.43.
• The Nasdaq Composite gained 130.27 points, or 0.82%, to 16,103.45.
• The Russell 2000 Index declined -14.59 points, or 0.72% to 2,024.74.

• 8:30 AM ET                  Housing Starts M/M for February…est. 1.425M
• 8:30 AM ET                  Building Permits M/M for February…est. 1.495M
• 8:55 AM ET                  Johnson/Redbook Weekly Sales
• 1:00 PM ET                   US Treasury to sell $16B in 20-year notes.
• 4:00 PM ET                   Net Long-term TIC Flows for January
• 4:30 PM ET                   API Weekly Inventory Data

• Earnings After the Close: CYCC HQY HROW RLMD SDHC

• Keybanc Midwest Industrials Bus Tour, 3/19-3/20
• NVIDIA GTC 2024, 3/18-3/21
• Piper 24th Annual Energy Conference, 3/18-3/20, in Las Vegas
• Roth MKM 36th Annual ROTH Conference, 3/17-3/19, in Dana Point, CA
• S&P Global 39th Annual World Petrochemical Conference, 3/18-3/22, in Houston, TX

• Nick Timiraos of the WSJ says the Fed is less worried about upside inflation risks and more concerned about the potential for growth downside https://tinyurl.com/3x9yzwzs

• Caleres (CAL) Q4 adj EPS $0.86 vs. est. $0.85; Q4 sales $697.1M vs. est. $694.33M; sees Q1 adjusted EPS ‘in line’ with Q4 (vs. est. $1.06) and sees Q1 consolidated net sales flat to up 1% vs. est. $682.43M.
• Ford Motor (F): Safety regulators have opened an investigation into a Ford SUV’s fatal crash that is suspected of having involved the automaker’s assisted-driving technology.
• International Flavors & Fragrances Inc (IFF) announces sale of its pharma solutions business to Roquette in proposed deal for enterprise value of up to $2.85B; expect to close transaction in first half of 2025.
• Kroger (KR) said it had entered a definitive agreement for the sale of its specialty pharmacy business to CarelonRx, a unit of U.S. health insurer Elevance Health (ELV); financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
• National CineMedia (NCMI) reported better-than-forecast 4Q adjusted Oibda and announced a $100 million share buyback program; Q4 NCIM saw a 43% increase in active national advertisers and record revenue per attendee; sees q1 revs $34.5M-$35.5M vs. est. $34M.
• Unilever (UL) said it plans to spin off its ice-cream business as part of a restructuring that could affect around 7,500 jobs. Its shares in London were up around 4%.

• Fidelity International (FIS) plans to cut about 20 positions in China as part of global job reductions to trim costs, according to people familiar with the matter – Bloomberg News.
• StoneCo. (STNE) said co-founder Street won’t seek reelection at the next shareholder meeting in April; posted 4Q adjusted Ebitda that missed the average analyst estimate.
• Truist Financial (TFC) upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Stephens.

• Madrigal Pharmaceuticals (MDGL) 750K share Spot Secondary priced at $260.00.
• Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (CRNX) announced positive topline results from PATHFNDR-2, the second of two Phase 3 studies evaluating the efficacy and safety of oral, once-daily investigational paltusotine for the treatment of acromegaly.

• At least five suppliers to TSMC (TSMC) and Intel (INTC) have delayed construction of facilities in Arizona, the Nikkei newspaper reported – https://tinyurl.com/yp9jk9ec
• X and Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk said Google (GOOGL) "interferes to help Democrats thousands of times every election season" after the Post detailed a watchdog group’s claims that the search engine boosts Democrats while censoring Republicans – NY Post reports https://tinyurl.com/5an4949k