Dow Jones rises ahead of Jackson Hole; S&P 500 within striking distance of highs

DOW JONES futures rose 0.04% to 40,908, while S&P 500 futures rose 0.10% to 5,626. NASDAQ 100 futures rose 0.23% to 19,870.

Wall Street ended a strong session yesterday, Wednesday, with the Dow up a small 0.14%, the S&P 500 up 42% and the Nasdaq up 0.57%, after almost noon of the Federal Reserve’s July meeting minutes showed that a “vast majority” of central bank participants believed it would “probably” be appropriate to cut interest rates at the September meeting if data continued to come in as expected.

The July policy meeting came ahead of a disappointing jobs report for the month and a series of economic reports that pointed to falling inflation and a slowing but resilient economy.

The S&P 500 is currently less than 1% from its all-time high. conquered in July.

Traders are now turning their attention to Jerome Powell’s highly anticipated speech tomorrow at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, hoping to get more information on rate policy. According to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, traders are currently pricing a 100% chance of a rate cut next month, but are divided on the size of the cut.

The majority of money market participants (69.5%) are betting on a 25-point decline.with almost a third of the bets aimed at winning by 50 points.

While the focus is on Jackson Hole, today will not be short of important macroeconomic indicators. Shortly before the opening, as usual, weekly jobless claims data showed 232,000 claims, higher than expectedEconomists polled by Reuters had expected claims to come in at 230,000. The Labor Department also revised up the previous week’s figure to 228,000 claims, from a previous estimate of 227,000.

The four-week moving average of new claims, considered a more reliable indicator of labor market trends because it tempers spikes in volatility, fell to 236,000.

After the call, the data Manufacturing PMI, Services PMI And Composite PMI August.

“The volatility of the past month has settled as macro fears have eased, expectations have been revised and investors have used the weakness as an opportunity to increase risk exposure. The next catalyst for markets will be Federal Reserve data… this will likely lead to a wait-and-see attitude until Friday,” Mark Hackett, head of investment research at Nationwide, told CNBC.

Among the day’s business-focused heroes, cloud data analytics company Snowflake fell 10.40% in pre-open trading despite raising its full-year product revenue forecast. Experts attributed the decline to the company’s inability to match higher revenue forecasts with higher profitability forecasts.

In the second quarter, Snowflake reported adjusted earnings of 18 cents per share, above the 16 cents per share expected by analysts surveyed. Its revenue was $869 million, also above the $851 million estimate.

Urban Outfitters’ report was also poorly received, with shares falling 14.6% the day before. In this case, comparable sales appear to have disappointed. Sales at Urban Outfitters’ branded stores, which have been open at least a year, fell 9.3% in the second quarter, compared with analysts’ expectations for an 8.3% decline. The company reported earnings of $1.24 per share on revenue of $1.35 billion. Analysts had expected earnings of $1 per share and revenue of $1.34 billion.

Shares of Agilent Technologies rose 2.6% in premarket trading after beat market expectations on both the top and bottom lines of the income statementThe laboratory supplies company reported earnings of $1.32 per share, excluding items, on revenue of $1.58 billion. Analysts had forecast earnings of 1.26 euros per share and revenue of $1.560 million.

As for analyst recommendations, Crocs is pointing to a higher open after Williams Trading upgraded the stock from “hold” to “hold.”buy‘. The firm justifies the move over the company’s decision to hire actress Sydney Sweeney as a representative of his Heydude brand, which he believes could help reverse the negative sales trend.

Shares of Charles Schwab fell nearly 3.5% after Canada’s TD Bank Group announced it was selling part of its stake in the firm.

Paramount Global shares rose 1.80% after Reuters reported that veteran media executive Edgar Bronfman had improved his takeover bid for the company, offering $6 billion for National Amusements (major shareholder) and a minority stake in Paramount.

In the raw materials markets Oil prices try to avoid falling for the fifth day in a row while weak demand expectations continue to weigh on benchmark indices. In addition, rumors are beginning to circulate that OPEC will begin to scale back some of its production cuts despite falling prices. Until now, producer country organizations have been very clear that they will only reduce production cuts if prices are adequate.

In any case, the benchmark Brent crude oil in Europe is rising by 0.22% today to $76.22 per barrel, while the American West Texas crude futures will rise by 0.32% to $72.16.

The euro fell 0.04% against the dollar to trade at $1.1144 per currency.

In fixed income, bond yields remained flat, outpacing Jackson Hole, with the 10-year yield rising to 3.799% and the two-year yield to 3.929%.

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