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The Street

Business

Martin Baccardax

Stock Market Today: Stocks steady as markets eye key inflation data

Inflation Wall Street

Updated 4:30 PM EDT by Rob Lenihan

Stocks finished mixed Monday as calm returned to global stock markets ahead of what could be a key week of economic data on Wall Street.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost points, or 0.36%, to finish the day at 39,357.01, while the S&P 500 ended essentially even at 5,344.39 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq edged up 0.21% to end the session at 16,780.61.

Shares of AI heavyweight Nvidia finished up 4.1% to $109.02.

Updated at 1:44 PM EDT

Trump trade?

Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) shares slumped lower in mid-day trading, extending their one-month decline to around 21.5%, after former President Donald Trump posted his first message on the X social media platform in nearly a year.

Trump, who owns around 115,000,000 shares in the group which controls Trust Social, his social media platform, posted an attack ad against his election rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, ahead of a scheduled interview with X owner Elon Musk later this evening.

Trump Media shares were last marked 7% lower on the session at $24.35 each.

BREAKING: Donald Trump has made his first post on X to his feed since August 24, 2023.

The post was a 2-minute campaign video and was dropped just hours before Trump is set to do an X Spaces event with Elon Musk.

In the first 10 minutes of the post going live, it received:… pic.twitter.com/grg4ZgZyhG
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 12, 2024

Updated at 12:58 PM EDT

Crude spike

Crude oil prices are back on the rise Monday, extending their recent gains to a fifth consecutive session, amid ongoing concerns that military action in the Middle East could disrupt global supplies.

The move also defied a surprise cut in the OPEC cartel's 2024 demand forecast, the first in more than a year, which was pared to a rise of 2.11 million barrels per day from its prior estimate of 2.25 million.

Brent crude futures contacts for October delivery, the global pricing benchmark, were last seen $1.73 higher at $81.38 per barrel while WTI contracts for September, which are tightly-linked to U.S. gas prices, rose by $2.13 to $78.97 per barrel.

For the first time since the opec secretariat released their demand forecast for 2024, they revised it down in their latest report. OPEC now sees demand growth for the year at 2.11 million bpd down from 2.25 million bpd. #OOTT #Opec
— Amena Bakr (@Amena__Bakr) August 12, 2024

Updated at 10:55 AM EDT

Retail focus

Walmart (WMT) shares are moving firmly higher in early trading ahead of the retail giant's second quarter earnings later this week.

Analysts expect Walmart to post overall sales of $168.5 billion for the three months ended in July, a 4.3% increase from the year-earlier period, with earnings rising 6.6% to 65 cents a share.

Walmart shares were last marked 1.6% higher at $69.03 each, a move that extends their 2024 gain to around 30%.

Updated at 9:39 AM EDT

Mixed open

The S&P 500 added 10 points, or 0.19%, in the opening minutes of trading, while the Nasdaq gained 60 points, or 0.35%.

The Dow, meanwhile, was marked 20 points lower while the small-cap Russell 2000 was essentially unchanged from Friday's close.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields were holding at 3.963% while 2-year notes bumped to 4.071% and the dollar index added 0.11% to trade at 103.252 against a basket of its global peers.

S&P 500 Opening Bell Heatmap (Aug. 12, 2024)$SPY +0.20%🟩$QQQ +0.19% 🟩$DJI +0.17% 🟩$IWM +0.01% 🟩 pic.twitter.com/2bi28KQ9KE
— Wall St Engine (@wallstengine) August 12, 2024

Updated at 8:40 AM EDT

Key banking deal

KeyCorp (KEY) shares soared higher in early trading following a $2.8 billion investment from Canada-based lender Scotiabank.

Scotiabank unveiled an agreement to take a 14.9% stake in KeyCorp, paid in common shares, at an equivalent price of of $17.17 each. That's a 17.5% premium to KeyCorp's Friday closing price.

KeyCorp shares were last marked 19.2% higher in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $17.42 each.

$KEY is going on offense with the $BNS equity raise.

I had $KEY around a 14% '25 ROTCE so they were ever so slightly cheap.

The new banking ecosystem dictates a Ricky Bobby mentality.

If you're not first, you're last. pic.twitter.com/qYQRpJkJXl
— Aurelius (@Aureliusltd28) August 12, 2024

Stock Market Today

Stocks ended last Friday on a high note, clawing back nearly all the losses from the global volatility wave that gripped markets at the start of the week. Friday's result reflected a rebound in megacap tech names and normalizing Treasury bond yields.

The market's benchmark volatility gauge, CBOE Group's VIX index, retreated from its historic early-week surge, which lifted it past the $65 mark. It was last seen trading at around $20.73 heading into the main Monday session.

At that level, traders are expecting daily swings of around 1.3%, or 69 points, for the S&P 500 over the next 30 days.

"However, while the VIX is dropping significantly, it remains at elevated levels, suggesting that the market is still pricing in a decent amount of volatility," Saxo Bank strategists wrote Monday. "This means that despite the recent decline, the situation should be monitored closely as the market continues to express a cautious sentiment."

With much of the so-called yen carry trade now unwound, and the U.S. dollar holding at 103.165 against a basket of its global peers, investor focus is likely to shift to this week's slate of economic data. Those reports include a key reading of July inflation on Wednesday, retail-sales figures on Thursday and housing-starts data on Friday.

Only nine S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report second-quarter earnings this week, but they include retail heavyweights Home Depot (HD) and Walmart (WMT) , both of which will provide key insights into consumer spending trends heading into the autumn.

With around 90% of the S&P 500 reporting June-quarter earnings so far, collective profits are set to rise 12.4% from last year to $501 billion, according to LSEG data.

Looking into the current-quarter forecast, investors see third-quarter profit growth slowing to around 6.1%, but the overall total rising sequentially to $515 billion.

Heading into the start of the trading day on Wall Street, futures contracts tied to the S&P 500, which remains down 2.13% for the quarter, were priced for a 2-point opening bell gain.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, suggest a 5-point decline while the tech-focused Nasdaq is called 30 points higher to start the trading week.

More Wall Street Analysts:

In overseas markets, Europe's Stoxx 600 was marked 0.04% lower in Frankfurt as traders eyed the opening bell on Wall Street as well as moves in the currency markets. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.45% in London on the strength of higher oil and commodity prices.

Overnight in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 closed 0.56% higher as the yen stabilized at 147.32 against the U.S. dollar, while the regional MSCI ex-Japan benchmark added 0.42% into the close of trading.

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