Stock Market Today: Live Updates

Walmart shares fell 2.5% after the retailer posted better-than-expected results in the previous quarter.

The company earned $1.71 per share on revenue of $164.05 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter. Analysts were expecting earnings per share of $1.51 on revenue of $159.72 billion.

However, CFO John David Rainey said, “Consumers are still under a lot of pressure.”

“If you look at the economic indicators, balance sheets are getting thinner and savings rates are declining compared to previous periods. That’s why we are very cautious about the rest of the year.”

– Fred Imbert, Melissa Repko

Retail giants Walmart and Home Depot are scheduled to report earnings on Tuesday, and they could give investors some insight into how well consumers are doing. Both companies are scheduled to release their latest quarterly results before noon.

Home Depot’s revenue has beaten expectations in 10 straight quarters, FactSet data shows. Walmart, meanwhile, has beaten analyst estimates in eight of the past 10 quarters.

Walmart and Home Depot lag behind the broader market to begin 2023. Walmart’s stock is up just 3.3% year to date, while Home Depot has advanced just 0.7%. The S&P 500 is up more than 6% during that time.

The Federal Reserve issued its Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting minutes could be a market-moving event this week as traders continue to look for clues about the Fed’s next policy moves.

The minutes are scheduled to be released at 2pm on Wednesday, and at the meeting, the central bank raised rates by 25 basis points and expects “ongoing” increases.

Last week, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said he could not rule out a 50 basis point rate hike at the next meeting. He also said that he had argued for such fare hike in a recent meeting.

– Fred Imbert

Many traders who were short technical are unwinding those positions, Goldman Sachs said.

The bank’s strategists noted that over the past 12 trading days, buying in US tech names was mainly driven by short covering “and to a lesser extent long buying”.

“On an aggregate theoretical basis, short covering in US tech stocks from Jan. 31 to Feb. 15 was the second largest of any 12-day period in the last decade and stood at 99.5 percent,” Goldman said.

– Fred Imbert, Michael Bloom

US stock futures got off to a rough start on Monday night. Dow and S&P 500 futures lost 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively. Nasdaq-100 futures also fell 0.2%.

– Fred Imbert