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Stock market news live updates: Stock futures pull back from record levels

Emily McCormick
·Reporter
·4 min read
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Stock futures fell Monday morning as traders took a pause after the S&P 500 and Dow logged fresh record highs last week. 

Contracts on the Dow dropped 60 points, or 0.2%, pulling back from the index's record high with about two hours left until the opening bell. S&P 500 futures fell by about the same percent margin, while Nasdaq futures underperformed with a drop of about 0.4% as technology stocks gave back some recent gains. 

For 2021 to date, the cyclical energy and financials sectors have handily outperformed the broader market, overtaking the technology-heavy sectors that led the market higher last year. However, this rotation has lost steam in April, with information technology, communication services and the consumer discretionary sectors outperforming for the month-to-date.

Investors over the past week have eagerly looked ahead to the start of earnings season, with big banks kicking off the first-quarter reporting season later this week. A slew of much stronger-than-expected economic data has suggested that corporate profits would jump tandem with the rebounding economy, especially in those sectors most deeply impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. 

"The initial reopening of the economy will trigger a huge rebound in margins across sectors which have been hit hardest by the COVID crisis," Ian Shepherdson, Pantheon Macroeconomics chief economist, wrote in a note Monday. "The unprecedented surge in households' cash balances over the past year – mostly due to the enforced drop in spending on services, augmented by stimulus payments – represents a potential wave of demand, while supply is constrained by business failures, especially in the restaurant sector." 

"Fed officials appear to be braced for a period of margin expansion – Chair Powell has talked often of the likelihood of 'transitory' inflation post-COVID – but the key question is whether this will morph into a sustained increase in inflation," Shepherdson added. 

Still, however, Federal Open Market Policymakers have to date demurred at the notion that upward price pressures might prove more than fleeting. And Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggested Sunday that the risks were still skewed to the downside – not toward overheating – when it came to the post-pandemic economy, telling CBS News in a 60 Minutes interview that a "principal" concern is that "we will reopen too quickly, people will too quickly return to their old practices, and we'll see another spike in cases.”

—

7:53 a.m. ET: Uber shares jump after delivery business posts record month in March, reaffirms profitability timeline 

Shares of Uber (UBER) jumped 2.2% in early trading Monday morning after the company said in a securities filing that its delivery business surged to a record annual gross bookings run-rate of $52 billion in March, with a pandemic-era boom in food delivery extended well into the first months of this year. The annualized gross bookings run-rate represented a jump of more than 150% over last year.

Uber's food delivery business has served as the company's growth engine during the pandemic, while demand for ride-hailing services dwindled. However, the mobility business showed signs of a resurgence last month, exceeding $30 billion in gross bookings run-rate for the best level since March of last year. Average daily gross bookings rose 9% month-over-month. 

"As vaccination rates increase in the United States, we are observing that consumer demand for Mobility is recovering faster than driver availability, and consumer demand for Delivery continues to exceed courier availability," Uber said in the filing. "We continue to believe that Uber is on track to reach quarterly Adjusted EBITDA profitability in 2021." 

—

7:08 a.m. ET:: Stock futures point to a lower open, retreating from record highs 

Here's where markets were trading Monday morning: 

  • S&P 500 futures (ES=F): 4,111.75, down 7.75 points or 0.19%

  • Dow futures (YM=F): 33,621.00, down 61 points or 0.18%

  • Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): 13,782.00, down 47.5 points or 0.34%

  • Crude (CL=F): $60.06 per barrel, +$0.74 (+1.25%)

  • Gold (GC=F): $1,740.80, -$4.00 (-0.23%)

  • 10-year Treasury (^TNX): -0.4 bps to yield 1.662%

People walk past the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and a statue of George Washington at Wall Street on March 23, 2021 in New York City. - Wall Street stocks were under pressure early ahead of congressional testimony from Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell as US Treasury bond yields continued to retreat. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
People walk past the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and a statue of George Washington at Wall Street on March 23, 2021 in New York City. - Wall Street stocks were under pressure early ahead of congressional testimony from Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell as US Treasury bond yields continued to retreat. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

—

Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @emily_mcck

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Silver will average $27 this year and beat gold due to its relatively cheaper valuation and strong investment demand, he said.In Singapore, Silver Bullion’s Gregersen is confident all that currently vacant space in his vault won’t go to waste. “Silver is usually a forgotten metal that people don’t really care much about,” he said. “But it’s starting to shine a bit more and that trend will continue.”(Updates with more detail on Citigroup price forecast in 10th paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Microsoft in Talks to Buy AI Firm Nuance Communications

    (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks to buy artificial intelligence and speech technology company Nuance Communications Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.The price being discussed could value Nuance at about $56 a share, though the terms may still change, one of the people said. That would give Nuance an equity value of about $16 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The price would be a 23% premium to Friday’s close.An agreement could be announced as soon as this week, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Talks are ongoing and the discussions could still fall apart.A representative for Microsoft declined to comment. A spokesperson for Nuance, based in Burlington, Massachusetts, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Nuance’s shares have climbed 3.4% this year, giving the company, which laid the groundwork for the technology used in Apple Inc.’s Siri voice software, an almost $13 billion market value but still trailing the 9.9% jump in the S&P 500 Index. Microsoft has climbed 15%.Nuance CollaborationMicrosoft and Nuance have collaborated since 2019 on technologies to do things like allow doctors to capture voice conversations from patient visits and enter the data into electronic medical records.“This can really help Microsoft accelerate the digitization of the health-care industry, which has lagged other sectors such as retail and banking,” said Anurag Rana, a Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst. “The biggest near-term benefit that I can see is in the area of telehealth, where Nuance transcription product is currently being used with Microsoft Teams.”Nuance, whose products include Dragon speech-recognition software, had net income of $91 million on revenue of $1.48 billion for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30., after losing $217 million the previous year.Microsoft, with a market value of $1.93 trillion, remains active on the deals front.Discord, ZenimaxLast month, Bloomberg News reported that the software giant was in talks to acquire Discord Inc., a video-game chat community, for more than $10 billion. It also bought video-game maker Zenimax Media Inc. for $7.5 billion in cash in a deal that closed this year.A deal for Nuance would rank as Microsoft’s second-largest acquisition, behind only the $24 billion LinkedIn Corp. transaction in 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.Microsoft entered the artificial intelligence space decades ago with research projects and an early focus by co-founder Bill Gates on finding ways to make it easier for people to speak to computers using plain English.In recent years, the company has assigned thousands of employees to its artificial intelligence work and released tools customers can use to build applications that understand and translate speech, recognize images and detect anomalies. The company views AI as a key driver of future sales of cloud services.Microsoft faces fierce competition in the space with rivals such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc. also investing heavily in the field.(Updates with analyst’s comment in eighth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • First United Corporation (NASDAQ:FUNC) Passed Our Checks, And It's About To Pay A US$0.15 Dividend

    First United Corporation ( NASDAQ:FUNC ) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 4 days. This means that investors...

  • Should You Buy The North West Company Inc. (TSE:NWC) For Its Upcoming Dividend?

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  • Indian shares, rupee slide as lockdown fears loom after COVID-19 surge

    Indian shares tumbled more than 3% and the rupee hit an eight-month low on Monday as a relentless surge in COVID-19 cases and a possible lockdown by a large state threatened to derail a recovery in Asia's third-largest economy. India reported another record daily surge in coronavirus infections and overtook Brazil to be the second worst-hit country by the health crisis on Monday.

  • Biden Team Eyes Potential Threat From China’s Digital Yuan

    (Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration is stepping up scrutiny of China’s plans for a digital yuan, with some officials concerned the move could kick off a long-term bid to topple the dollar as the world’s dominant reserve currency, according to people familiar with the matter.Now that China’s digital-currency efforts are gathering momentum, officials at the Treasury, State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council are bolstering their efforts to understand the potential implications, the people said.American officials are less worried about an immediate challenge to the current structure of the global financial system, but are eager to understand how the digital yuan will be distributed, and whether it could also be used to work around U.S. sanctions, the people said on the condition of anonymity.A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment. A National Security Council spokeswoman did not reply to a request for comment.The People’s Bank of China has rolled out trial issuance of a digital yuan in cities across the country, putting it on track to be the first major central bank to issue a virtual currency. A broader roll-out is expected for the Winter Olympics in Beijing next February, giving the effort international exposure.Many key details of the digital yuan are still in flux, including specifics on how it would be distributed. China’s recent establishment of a joint venture with SWIFT, the messaging nexus through which most cross-border settlements pass through today, suggests it is possible a digital yuan could work within the current financial architecture rather than outside of it.U.S. officials are reassured that China’s intentions aren’t to use the digital yuan to evade American sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter. The dollar’s current dominance in cross-border transactions gives the U.S. Treasury the power to cut off much of a business or even a country’s access to the global financial system.China’s officials have said the main intentions of the digital yuan are to replace banknotes and coins, to reduce the incentive to use cryptocurrencies and to complement the current private-sector run electronic payments system -- dominated by Ant Group Co.’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay. The PBOC has been working for years on the digital yuan, also called the e-CNY, having set up a specialist research team in 2014.Here’s How a Central Bank Digital Currency Could Work: Chart​​“To provide a backup or redundancy for the retail payment system, the central bank has to step up” and provide digital-currency services, Mu Changchun, the director of the PBOC’s digital-currency research institute, said at an event last month.Beyond seeking a backup to privately run e-payments, Chinese regulators have more broadly been expanding their oversight of the country’s digital champions. Ant Group was told by Beijing to become a financial holding company, which will be regulated more like a bank. China also imposed a $2.8 billion antitrust fine on Ant’s affiliate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.Read More: Ant to Be Financial Holding Firm in Overhaul Forced by ChinaThe PBOC is also examining the potential for using the digital yuan in cross-border payments, launching a project studying the issue with a unit of the Bank for International Settlements along with the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Hong Kong’s monetary authority.The Biden administration isn’t currently planning to take any action to counter longer-term threats from China’s digital currency, the people familiar with the discussions said. However, China’s plans have given renewed impetus to efforts to consider the creation of a digital dollar, they said.Members of Congress have also been increasingly interested in a digital dollar, aware of China’s moves, and asked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about the issue in hearings earlier this year.Powell: Need for Digital Dollar Is an Issue for Congress, PublicPowell said in February the Fed was looking “very carefully” at a digital dollar. “We don’t need to be the first. We need to get it right.”Yellen has signaled interest in research into the viability of a digital dollar, a shift from a lack of enthusiasm under her predecessor, Steven Mnuchin.“It makes sense for central banks to be looking at” issuing sovereign digital currencies, she said at a virtual conference in February. Yellen said a digital version of the dollar could help address hurdles to financial inclusion in the U.S. among low-income households.A recent report from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence said the extent of the threat of any foreign digital currency to the dollar’s centrality in the global financial system “will depend on the regulatory rules that are established.”China’s currency makes up little more than 2% of global foreign exchange reserves compared with nearly 60% for the U.S. dollar. Policy decisions, rather than technical developments, will also be necessary to push forward yuan internationalization, as China maintains a strict regime of capital controls.China’s financial system is too “fragile and weak” to pose a real threat to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, according to Mark Sobel, U.S. chairman for the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.“At the end of the the day the markets have more confidence in the Fed” than China’s central bank, said Sobel, a former senior U.S. Treasury official for international matters.(Adds reference to China’s regulatory measures in 10th paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Billionaire Saudi Family Breaks the Mold on Kingdom’s Secrecy

    (Bloomberg) -- For Ahmad BinDawood, last year’s share offering in the eponymous Saudi grocery business was a chance to shape his legacy at the family firm he’s worked at since the age of eight, while cementing a $3.1 billion fortune built over the decades by his father and uncles.As the October public offering of BinDawood Holding Co. got underway, details emerged of some $76 million in previously undisclosed loans made by the Saudi company to family members. In a departure from the traditional secrecy associated with the kingdom’s family firms, Jeddah-based BinDawood revealed everything, put the IPO on hold and gave buyers the chance to take their money back.As the loans were quickly repaid, the sale resumed and eventually raised about $500 million for the family, attracting $29 billion in bids along the way.“We have to be very transparent with investors,” BinDawood said in an interview in Riyadh last month. “If there is any disclosure at any time that we need to make, we will go ahead and do it. So we took this on the shoulder and decided to announce it.”The success of the IPO has helped establish BinDawood, 37, as one of a new breed of Saudi executives rising within a corporate world that was largely off-limits to foreigners until a few years ago. What’s more, it has made him emblematic of a drive to shake up traditional ways of doing business, dovetailing with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s goal of transforming the oil-rich kingdom into a regional business hub.That mold-breaking character can even be seen inside BinDawood stores. The past few months have seen the company doing prominent Valentine’s Day and Easter promotions, a move unthinkable just a few years ago in a country that has historically adhered to a strict Wahhabist interpretation of Islam.Prince Mohammed’s commitment to reshaping the economy isn’t all working in BinDawood’s favor. A sudden decision to triple value added tax last year hit consumer spending. Higher customs duties and fees on expatriates are driving up costs for Saudi firms, too. And all at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has been stoking unemployment.“We remain cautious of near-to-mid term growth across the consumers space as market size shrinks on potential expat depopulation,” said Mehwish Zafar, a senior equity analyst at Arqaam Capital in Dubai who has a “hold” recommendation on the shares. Like-for-like sales growth will probably be negative until at least 2022, he said, with growth only coming from new store openings or acquisitions.Shares in BinDawood jumped more than 30% in the days immediately after the sale. They have since slipped back, showing as of Thursday a gain of about 11.5% from the listing price.It’s a performance that has helped buttress the family’s bid to diversify into other assets while strengthening the core business, a goal identified by Ahmad BinDawood as key to avoiding the kind of strife his father feared might undermine the business as it passed to a new generation.“The majority of family businesses don’t survive the transition to the third generation, and that’s something that concerned my father a lot,” BinDawood said.Pilgrims ProgressThe rise of the BinDawood business has been some 40 years in the making. Once a small-time vendor of Arabian perfumes and groceries to pilgrims visiting the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina, it is now a nationwide concern spanning supermarkets and hypermarkets, hotels and distribution centers. The grocery business alone employs more than 10,000 people across 74 stores.Ahmad BinDawood’s own destiny was sealed as soon as his father, Abdulrazzag BinDawood graduated in the 1980’s from the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Riyadh. Instead of following his peers into the oil industry, he decided to join his brothers Ismail and Abdullah in their burgeoning retail trade.Which is why Ahmad found himself on the front line at such a young age. At just eight, he was helping to sell items to the pilgrims during his school holidays, envious of friends who were away avoiding Saudi Arabia’s scorching summers.“Our friends were traveling and off enjoying themselves and sometimes we would would ask: why not us?” BinDawood said. “But that experience built the passion in us to stay in the business that our father and our uncles built.”A decision to push into online shopping and delivery helped prepare the firm for lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, but couldn’t outweigh the hit from the absence of religious tourists who were prevented from entering the kingdom for much of the year. While profit climbed almost 7% last year, it had slumped more than 53% in the fourth quarter as Saudi Arabia reimposed travel restrictions.BinDawood is still optimistic that shoppers will return as travel resumes, though how quickly pilgrims come back to Saudi Arabia in anything like their previous numbers remains uncertain.Next up may be the purchase of a rival grocery chain to expand into neighboring countries, BinDawood said. At the same time, the IPO proceeds will help further develop the BinDawood Group family office, which Ahmad’s father is now running. That fortune, which is split across several family members, is estimated at about $3.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.“The IPO had two main angles to it -- sustainability and continuity of the business first, and second the diversification for the family,” he said. “We are in the process of building the family office and bringing in the right talent.”More family businesses are likely to follow in BinDawood’s footsteps. The IPO of Saudi Aramco in 2019, which many Saudis never thought they would see, “has been a massive driver in motivating families to take their operating businesses public to help grow their enterprises and generate new wealth,” said Tayyab Mohamed, co-founder of London-based family office staffing firm, Agreus Group.For all the challenges, Ahmad BinDawood is optimistic, citing his life-long involvement in the business as a foundation for success.“Retail is embedded in our DNA now,” he said.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • HSBC and Huawei CFO reach agreement on document publication linked to extradition case

    HSBC and Huawei Technologies' Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou have reached an agreement in a dispute about the publication of documents relating to U.S. fraud allegations against her, their lawyers told a Hong Kong court. The legal dispute reached the Hong Kong court last month after a British judge in February blocked the release of internal HSBC documents relating to the fraud allegations against Meng.

  • Gold eases as U.S. yields hold firm; inflation data in focus

    Gold prices eased on Monday as U.S. Treasury yields remained elevated, denting the appeal of bullion, while investors waited for this week's key U.S. inflation and retail sales data. Spot gold was 0.1% down at $1,741.80 an ounce by 1147 GMT. As long as yields are relatively high, gold will not benefit, said ABN Amro analyst Georgette Boele, adding that the market is now focused on U.S. March Consumer Price Index data due on Tuesday.

  • Veolia Agrees to Buy Suez, Ending Bitter Takeover Battle

    (Bloomberg) -- Veolia Environnement SA agreed to acquire Suez SA, ending a long and bitter takeover battle with a sweetened offer.After nearly eight months of fierce resistance from Suez’s management, Veolia unlocked a deal, lifting its offer price and pledging to sell back a bigger part of its French water rival to maintain competition. The deal gives Suez an equity value of about 13 billion euros ($15 billion), Veolia Chief Executive Officer Antoine Frerot told reporters on Monday.Veolia agreed to pay 20.50 euros a share for the roughly 70% of Suez it doesn’t already own, according to a statement. It bought its initial stake in the company last year for 18 euros a share from Engie SA, which will benefit from the revised takeover price.The transaction will create a global giant in waste and water services under the Veolia umbrella, with annual revenue of about 37 billion euros. It will also leave some elements of Suez to continue as a new business owned by a variety of French shareholders and private equity groups.“Given that we’ll get most of the assets that we really wanted for our project, this deal will largely create value for Suez shareholders,” Frerot said.Suez shares traded 7.6% higher at 19.84 euros by 1:26 p.m. in Paris. Veolia jumped 8.7%.The two companies will enter into a definitive agreement on May 14. The transaction requires approval from competition authorities in several countries.“For Veolia, this agreement ends months of uncertainty, which has held back the shares,” Barclays analysts said in a research note. “Although we’re still missing more detailed financial information we believe investors will take the view that this agreement will be realized leading to a win-win for both.”Suez AssetsAs part of the deal, French investment funds Meridiam and Ardian SAS -- along with France’s Caisse des Depots et Consignations and U.S.-based private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners -- will be allowed to buy Suez assets with 6.9 billion euros in revenue, Frerot said on a conference call.Suez employees will also be able to participate, and a majority of the shareholders of the new Suez company will be French, he said.These assets include Suez’s municipal water and solid waste activities in France; its water businesses in Italy, the Czech Republic, Africa, Central Asia, India, China, Australia; and its digital and environmental activities.The price offered for these assets will be “coherent” with the price of the whole transaction, Frerot said. The buyers of the new Suez have pledged to keep it for at least 10 years, he added.Meridiam is ready to take at least 40% of the future entity resulting from the agreement, provided that the terms allow for the implementation of a very long-term industrial project, the French investment firm said in a statement.Until now, Veolia had offered to sell back only Suez’s French assets, which have more than than 5 billion euros in revenue. Suez made a counter-proposal last month to keep 9.1 billion in revenues. The deal reached by Veolia includes termination of an agreement in which Suez planned to sell its most of its Australian assets to Cleanaway Waste Management Ltd.The deal between the two French rivals marks a surprise U-turn as they’ve spent months fighting in courts and in the political arena, accusing each other of lying and pretending to pursue a negotiated solution.Prior to their agreement, Suez expressed concerns that Veolia’s hostile takeover would stifle competition, hurt jobs in France, and leave the remaining Suez assets with too narrow a base to compete. Meanwhile, Veolia accused Suez’s management of putting their own interest above that of the company’s shareholders, and of organizing the dismantling of their own group by selling assets.“The deal that we reached last night is historic,” Frerot said. “It will allow Veolia to build a global champion in ecological transformation.”(Updates with details of the takeover battle in final three paragraphs.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.