Reuters
U.S. stock indexes were set for a lower open on Monday with Tyson Foods falling on disappointing quarterly results, while investors re-assessed their predictions on when the U.S. Federal Reserve would start cutting rates.
Wall Street’s main indexes slumped on Friday after the non-farm payrolls report showed the U.S. economy added jobs at a rapid pace.
“Markets are looking ahead to a slower start… today is a bit of a rethink on when the Fed might have to cut rates,” Arthur R Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Financial said.
“The consensus had been firmly in the camp of the fourth quarter of this year, but with the red hot jobs number that came out on Friday there is a bit of a second guessing of that notion.”
Traders will scrutinize speeches by a host of Fed officials this week, including Chair Jerome Powell, for any change in the central bank’s dovish rhetoric after data on Friday also showed services activity were strong in January.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note extended gains to more than a month’s high.
Money market participants now expect the Fed’s terminal rate to settle above 5% by May followed by rate cuts in September.
After being bruised in 2022, U.S. equities have recovered strongly in 2023, led by megacap growth stocks amid hopes that the Fed will temper its aggressive rate hikes, which in turn could alleviate some pressure on equity valuations.
Tyson Foods Inc slipped 4.7% in premarket trading on missing Street estimates for quarterly revenue, pinched by falling beef prices and lower volumes in its pork segment.
Halfway through the earnings of the S&P 500 companies, 69.6% had reported results above expectations as of Friday, according to Refinitiv. Overall, analysts still expect quarterly earnings of S&P 500 firms declining 2.7%.
At 8:48 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 190 points, or 0.56%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 33 points, or 0.8%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 134.25 points, or 1.06%.
Top gold producer Newmont Corp slid 6.1% on its $16.9 billion offer for Australian peer Newcrest Mining Ltd to build a global gold behemoth.
U.S.-listed Chinese stocks like Pinduoduo Inc and Baidu Inc slid 3.5% and 1.1%, respectively, on geopolitical concerns after the U.S. military shot what it believes was a Chinese spy balloon.
Tesla Inc bucked the overall trend with a 2.3% gain after a U.S. jury cleared Chief Executive Elon Musk and his company from charges of misleading investors with his 2018 tweets about taking Tesla private.
On the data front, investors will monitor jobless claims for the week ended Feb. 4 and University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey to assess the strength of the U.S. economy.
