Stock Market Today: Live Updates

Tech stocks rose shortly after the opening bell on Wednesday, pushing the Nasdaq Composite Index higher for the third day in a row.

The tech stock index rose 0.57%, and the S&P 500 rose 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the only laggard, dropping 62 points, or 0.16%.

— Brian Evans

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell.

• Biogen – Shares rose more than 6% premarket after the drugmaker announced earnings of $3.67 per share, beating LSEG analysts' expectations of $3.45 per share. The company blamed cost-cutting efforts and higher-than-expected sales of its Alzheimer's disease drug Rekenbi.
• Airbnb – The vacation property rental platform rose nearly 2% following an upgrade to neutral purchase by Mizuho. Mizuho cited a number of driving factors, including the potential launch of sponsored listings and increased demand from the Summer Olympics. The new $200 price target suggests a 24% upside.
• Tesla — Shares of the struggling electric car maker rose 12% in pre-market trading after CEO Elon Musk said Tesla plans to start producing new affordable EV models by early 2025. did. However, Tesla was disappointed with its first quarter profit.

Read here for the complete list.

— Peer Singh

Shares of troubled aerospace company Boeing rose more than 2% in premarket trading after first-quarter results beat Wall Street expectations.

The company reported an adjusted loss of $1.13 per share on revenue of $16.57 billion. Analysts surveyed by LSEG expected adjusted per-share losses to widen to $1.76 and $16.23 billion, respectively.

— Brian Evans

European stocks opened slightly higher on Wednesday, with the benchmark Stoxx 600 index up 0.2% by 8:50 a.m. London time.

Britain's FTSE 100 index rose 0.4% after setting a new record close on Tuesday, while France's CAC 40 index fell 0.1% and Germany's DAX index rose 0.2%.

Shares of Chinese artificial intelligence company SenseTime Group soared more than 20%, outpacing the Hang Seng Index's 1.04% rise.

It wasn't immediately clear what caused the rise, but the company was planning to hold a technology day on Tuesday during which it would announce its “latest advances.” SenseTime's cutting-edge AI technology. ”

Chinese media reported that Sensetime announced the SenseNova 5.0 AI model. Chairman Xu Li reportedly claimed that SenseNova is superior to OpenAI's GPT 4 in most common usage scenarios, especially in enterprise applications and Chinese usage scenes.

The Japanese yen could break above 155 yen against the US dollar after Friday's Bank of Japan monetary policy meeting, according to a Bank of America note.

BofA analyst Shusuke Yamada said the Bank of Japan has already communicated that a weaker yen could affect policy through its impact on inflation, but repeating this communication alone will not be enough to support the yen. I wrote that I was thinking.

Yamada said that for the Bank of Japan to support the yen, “policy is too accommodative, the next rate hike is as imminent as in June, and final interest rates will be higher than the market has priced in.” should be recognized.”

But he said that was unlikely and that the yen was likely to rise above the 155 yen level, triggering intervention, adding that if Japan did not intervene near that level, “the market would be bought and the US dollar / There is a possibility that the yen will rise.” Test 160 now [its] Please solve it at that level. ”

— Lim Huijie

Cryptocurrency investment firm Grayscale on Tuesday took the next step toward establishing an Ether exchange-traded fund.

The company filed a Form S-3 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as part of the process to convert its Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) fund into an ETF.

Grayscale has also filed to form a Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust, which will likely have lower management fees than ETHE.

The SEC gave the green light to a Bitcoin ETF earlier this year, but the regulator has yet to approve an Ethereum ETF. Industry experts expect an update within the next month, but many are skeptical of approval.

Grayscale was a key part of the effort to get the Bitcoin ETF approved, which included a lawsuit with the SEC. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the largest Bitcoin ETF, has suffered outflows since its conversion in January.

— Jesse Pound

”[G]The swell is strong. The Fed's policy priorities haven't slowed inflation as much as expected. “Officials are probably spooked by concerns about the persistence of inflation,” Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics, said Monday. There is no need to rush to cut it unless there is an economic shock.

London-based Capital Economics believes it makes more sense for the European Central Bank and Bank of England to ease monetary policy before the US, saying: “Economic growth in these countries is weak and inflation is below target. “As more households and businesses refinance their fixed-rate debt, there is a risk that policy will become too harsh.”

Shearing said neither central bank needs to wait for the Fed to take the lead. Both have operated independently of the Fed over the past economic cycles.

According to Capital Economics, the market is too pessimistic about interest rate policy in the second half of 2024 and 2025. “While developments on the inflation front have muddied the picture, we still expect the Fed, ECB and Bank of England to cut rates by more than the market is currently pricing in over the next 18 months. We think the central bank will also act, even if the Fed waits until September to take its first action. ”

— Scott Schnipper

Don't look now, but the S&P 500 Financial has outperformed the overall market as measured by the S&P 500 by 9.3% to 6.3% so far in 2024. It also outpaces his 6.1% rise this year in the S&P 500 tech index.

“Banks continue to perform well globally,” Strategas Securities' technical and macro research team, led by Chris Verrone, told clients Tuesday morning. “A more impressive response to the market's initial oversold conditions has come from the financial sector, which is once again making new relative performance highs,” Strategas said. “Approximately 25 Russell 1000 financial members [Monday’s] It's a relatively strong list for the first time in three months, with capital markets, banking and consumer finance names leading the push. ”

The top 25 financial stocks range from Bank of America, with a market capitalization of about $300 billion, to SLM Corporation, with a market capitalization of about $5 billion.

The relative strength of financial stocks is not limited to the United States. “Globally, European and Japanese banks also maintain their leadership position as the overall market consolidates and adjusts,” Strategas said. For example, British bank Barclays' ADRs rose 22.5% in 2024, outpacing the 16.6% rise in S&P 500 Communication Services stocks.

Some of the stocks that made big moves in after-hours trading are listed below.

• Tesla — The electric car maker rose 8.2% despite missing expectations on both lines. Tesla has shared new efforts to offer affordable models.
• Mattel — The toy maker soared 2.4% after reporting a smaller loss per share than Wall Street expected.
• Visa — The financial company rose 2.6% after reporting better-than-expected earnings.

See the complete list here.

— Alex Harring

S&P 500 futures rose just after 6 p.m. ET.

Futures tracking the benchmark index rose 0.2%, while Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.4%.

Dow futures added just 7 points and were trading just above the flatline.

— Alex Harring