Tesla, Intel, BlackRock: What to Watch When the Stock Market Opens Today

PAID World Markets
January 14, 2021

This post was originally published on this site

Here’s what we’re watching ahead of Thursday’s opening bell.

—S&P 500 futures gained 0.1%, potentially extending Wednesday’s advance, which lifted the index to its second-highest level in history. Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3%. Read our full market wrap here.

What’s Coming Up

—President-elect Joe Biden is due to give a speech outlining the scale of his proposed spending package to support households and businesses through the pandemic.

—
Progress Software
will deliver its latest quarterly results after the close.

—Weekly new jobless claims out this morning are expected to still be high with accelerating Covid-19 cases leading to more restrictions. Forecasts for 800,000 new claims would be slightly above last week’s 787,000.

Market Movers to Watch

—Tesla shares slipped 0.8% ahead of the bell. On Wednesday, while
Elon Musk

was tweeting about sea shanties and Starship engine tests, U.S. safety regulators demanded a recall of nearly 160,000 Tesla cars. Model S and Model X touch screens can fail after a few years of use, affecting some safety functions.

—
Apache
leapt 4.3% premarket after announcing a fourth oil discovery in its offshore field near Suriname on the northeast coast of South America.

—
BlackRock
stock is up 1.1% after the money-management giant said fourth-quarter profits were up by almost a fifth, which beat expectations.

—
Intel
is posting more gains premarket, up 2.3%, after its 7% jump on Wednesday. The chip maker booted Bob Swan out as chief executive after activist hedge fund Third Point demanded changes. He’ll be replaced by Pat Gelsinger, chief at
VMware.

—
KLA,
a $45 billion industrial-electronics firm, is up 3.4% premarket, leading gainers on Thursday and extending a 12% rally since the start of 2021.

—
Delta Air Lines
rose 1.4% premarket despite reporting a loss for 2020 of $12.5 billion, its worst-ever year. Chief Executive Ed Bastian said the pandemic was in its worst phase but he hoped to see a recovery in air traffic this year. Delta expects to burn through $10 million to $15 million cash a day in the first quarter, but said it had plenty of funding.

—
Deere
shares gained 0.8% premarket. Investors hope an economic recovery driven by Covid-19 vaccines and government largess will boost cyclical stocks. The tractor maker is also up 12% so far this year.

Market Fact

Gasoline prices rose 8.4% in December, accounting for more than 60% of the overall increase in consumer prices for the month, according to the Labor Department.