Dow Jones futures fell slightly Friday morning, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures. The Fed's favored inflation gauge, the core PCE index, is on tap before the open.
The stock market fell slightly Thursday after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq sold off Wednesday on news that President Donald Trump would announce auto tariffs. Trump confirmed that move late Wednesday.
Most automakers fell Thursday on the new Trump tariffs. Tesla edged higher, but slashed gains after hitting resistance.
Alibaba, Sea Limited and Ollie's Bargain Outlet flashed buy signals. But investors should be very cautious about making new buys.
Nvidia-backed CoreWeave priced its initial public offering well below the official range Thursday night, after the cloud-computing startup had effectively slashed the IPO's size and price range during the day. The CoreWeave IPO tests demand for AI infrastructure stocks.
Nvidia stock edged higher early Friday after sliding Thursday.
Sea stock is on the IBD Leaderboard watchlist.
Dow Jones Futures Today
Dow Jones futures fell 0.1% vs. fair value. S&P 500 futures lost 0.15%. Nasdaq 100 futures retreated 0.3%.
The 10-year Treasury yield declined to 4.32%.
Remember that overnight action in Dow futures and elsewhere doesn't necessarily translate into actual trading in the next regular stock market session.
Fed Inflation Report: Core PCE
The February core PCE price index, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure, is due at 8:30 a.m. ET. It's not expected to be as tame as the CPI and PPI inflation reports released earlier this month. Economists see a 0.3% rise vs. January, with core PCE inflation ticking up to 2.7% vs. a year earlier.
The February report is unlikely to show any meaningful price impact from Trump tariffs.
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Stock Market Rally Attempt
The stock market wavered Thursday before closing slightly lower, adding to Wednesday's losses on the latest Trump tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4% in Thursday's stock market trading, just holding the 200-day moving average. The S&P 500 index lost 0.3%. The Nasdaq composite gave up 0.5%. The small-cap Russell 2000 retreated 0.4%.
The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF dipped 0.3%, again hitting resistance at the 200-day line.
A stock market rally attempt is underway but still needs a follow-through day to confirm the uptrend. Monday's gains had FTD qualities, but Wednesday's losses were a bearish sign.
Defensive growth, such as insurance and aerospace, is showing relative strength but isn't necessarily making progress. Some biotechs and many Chinese stocks are leaders, but those areas carry risks. Some utilities are looking good, but defensive stocks may struggle if a broad uptrend takes hold. Gold continues to thrive, though many plays are extended.
U.S. crude oil prices rose 0.4% to $69.92 a barrel, the highest close in a month.
The 10-year Treasury yield climbed three basis points to 4.37%, hitting a one-month high.
ETFs
Among growth ETFs, the Innovator IBD 50 ETF rose 0.4%. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF sank 1.8%. The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF lost 1.9%, with Nvidia stock the No. 1 component.
ARK Innovation ETF retreated 1.7%. Tesla stock is still the top holding across ARK Invest's ETFs.
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Stocks Flashing Buy Signals
Alibaba stock rose 2.6% to 135.63, back above the 21-day moving average, offering an opportunity for aggressive traders to enter or add to the China leader. On Thursday, Alibaba announced a new artificial intelligence model optimized to run on phones and laptops. In February, Apple tapped the Chinese tech giant to power iPhone AI features in China.
Sea stock climbed 3.3% to 133.57, bouncing from around the 50-day line to clear a few weeks of trading, offering an aggressive entry. The Singapore-based e-commerce and online entertainment giant may be working on a new consolidation, just above a prior, shallow cup base.
Ollie's Bargain Outlet stock bounced 4.5% to 113.07, clearing a 111.71 early entry from a too-low handle. OLLI stock has an official 115.42 double-bottom buy point.
CoreWeave IPO
Cloud-computing startup CoreWeave sold 37.5 million shares at $40 a piece late Thursday, raising about $1.5 billion. That was below the official target of 49 million shares at $47-$55, raising up to $2.7 billion. But that was in line with reports earlier in the day that the AI infrastructure firm had scaled back its IPO plans.
Nvidia, which already had a 6% stake, reportedly was buying a big chunk of the CoreWeave IPO shares. CoreWeave is a big buyer of Nvidia AI chips.
Shares will begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday.
CoreWeave revenue spiked over 700% last year, but some 62% came from Microsoft.
Nvidia stock fell 2.05% on Thursday after tumbling Wednesday. Shares rose a fraction Friday morning.
Tesla Stock
Tesla stock edged up 0.4% to 273.13 on Thursday, but that's after hitting 291.85 intraday, briefly topping the 200-day moving average. Shares are up 9.8% this week, set to snap a nine-week losing streak, according to MarketSurge.
Trump late Wednesday said that his auto tariffs may be "net neutral or they may be good" for Tesla, which is run by close ally Elon Musk. The Trump tariffs on autos will have some impact on Tesla, but it will also benefit from industrywide U.S. price hikes as other automakers face much higher costs and supply issues.
However, the U.K. floated the possibility of removing Tesla from EV incentives in that countries, after Canada took that step on Tuesday.
Tesla will likely report first-quarter deliveries on April 2.
What To Do Now
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are below their 200-day moving averages. The rally attempt has not been confirmed. Some buying opportunities pop up, but often don't last. It's not a good environment for adding exposure.
Investors may have had to trim or exit recent positions over the past few sessions.
Keep working on watchlists. If the market begins to show real momentum, you want to be ready.
Read The Big Picture every day to stay in sync with the market direction and leading stocks and sectors.
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