Stock futures are rising, with technology shares on track to lead gains ahead of a policy decision from the Federal Reserve. Here’s what we’re watching in Wednesday’s trading:
shares fell 14% premarket after the cloud security firm issued guidance below expectations for the current quarter and lowered its annual outlook as supply-chain issues crimp its ability to meet demand.
named a new chief executive officer and made changes to its board Tuesday, moves that will allow the railroad operator to avert a proxy fight. Investors were quiet; the stock was flat premarket.
edged down 0.1% after the financial services company said profit fell in the fourth quarter, but beat analysts’ consensus projections, as revenue increased due to strong credit results.
are among the companies reporting earnings after the close.
Chart of the Day
A mania in clean-energy stocks holds lessons for ESG investors, writes James Mackintosh. This is the third in a series of Streetwise columns taking a critical look at sustainable investing.
HYDERABAD: A hospital superintendent and a duty doctor at a community health centre (CHC) in Achampet of Nagarkurnool district in Telangana were suspended on Wednesday for “denying” admission to a pregnant woman, who had tested positive for Covid-19. After being denied admission at CHC Achampet, the woman delivered her baby on the road outside the hospital on Tuesday, health officials said. The pregnant woman came to the CHC and after tests were conducted, she tested positive for Covid-19 following which the doctors did not admit her and told her to go to some other health centre, the officials said. After the delivery, the woman was finally brought inside and the newborn and her mother are doing fine, they said. Terming it as an act of gross negligence and violation of rules by the staff concerned, the Telangana Vaidhya Vidhana Parishad commissioner Dr K Ramesh Reddy placed the superintendent of the hospital and the duty doctor at CHC Achampet under suspension with immediate effect. Clear instructions were given to all government hospitals not to deny any admission to pregnant women even if they test positive for Covid-19, the official said. The two doctors were surrendered to the director of Public Health with a request to initiate disciplinary action on both of them, he said. The superintendent of District Hospital Nagarkurnool was directed to conduct a detailed enquiry and submit a report to the commissioner of TVVP (which comes under Health Medical and Family Welfare Department).
Global stocks, oil and cryptocurrencies fell, as investors grappled with the prospect of higher interest rates and disappointing results from popular consumer tech stocks.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 fell 0.4%, pointing to an extension of Thursday’s drop, when the index closed down 1.1%. Nasdaq-100 futures declined 0.7%, suggesting more losses for technology stocks. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures ticked down 0.1%.
Shares in Asia-Pacific and Europe broadly retreated. The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 fell 1.2%, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index and Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 0.9%.
“As we return to a more normal world, names like Peloton and Netflix being weaker or disappointing isn’t a surprise,” said Arun Sai, a multiasset strategist at Pictet Asset Management. “I think when the dust settles, we’ll have a reasonable set of numbers in Q4 earnings. Peloton and Netflix are more of a distraction than anything else.”
This has hit growth stocks and put the Nasdaq in correction territory, as investors are dumping shares of unprofitable companies. Tensions between Russia and NATO are also weighing on market sentiment, investors said. The S&P 500 is down 3.9% this week, on track for the worst performance since Oct. 2020.
“Geopolitical risk plays a role, repricing of [central bank] policy plays a role and the inflation mix in the sense of cost pressures. You put all those together and there is actually quite a change,” said Georgina Taylor, a multiasset fund manager at Invesco. “Risk premium for equities needs to go up.”
President Biden said on Wednesday that the U.S. is ready to unleash sanctions against Russia if President Vladimir Putin makes a move against Ukraine. Biden also laid out a possible diplomatic resolution. Photo: Susan Walsh/Associated Press
Investors’ bets on faster rate rises have driven up inflation-linked bond yields, seen as a benchmark for financing costs. The yield on the 10-year Treasury inflation-protected security rose as high as minus 0.526% Friday, the highest level since June 2020, before easing slightly to minus 0.536%. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note edged down to 1.792% from 1.833% Thursday.
Cryptocurrencies tumbled, with bitcoin losing nearly 6.5% compared with its level at 5 p.m. ET Thursday. It traded below $38,300, the lowest level since August, before rising slightly to around $38,700. Ether fell 6.8%.
Oil prices also declined. Global benchmark Brent crude fell 1.5%, trading at $87.03 a barrel, weighed down by a surprise increase in U.S. crude stockpiles, according to analysts at RBC Capital Markets.
fell 10% after it posted an operating loss and lowered its guidance, citing supply-chain constraints. Shares of some Chinese drugmakers surged after they were selected to help make cheaper versions of Merck’s Covid-19 pill.
The stock market’s winter selloff deepened this week, pushing all three major indexes further into the red for 2022.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both fell a second straight week, while the Nasdaq Composite has been down the last three. Investors continued to sell bonds, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note up for a fourth straight week, notching its biggest rise over that stretch since mid-March.
Investors were still assessing the outlook for interest rates and how fast the Federal Reserve will move to tame inflation, roiling the stock and bond markets. At the same time, a rise in Covid-19 cases has weighed on sentiment, although there are signs that infections may be nearing a peak.
The week started on shaky footing, with stocks broadly falling and the Nasdaq nearing a correction before closing slightly higher. On Tuesday, Fed Chairman
Jerome Powell
reaffirmed the central bank’s view that inflation will likely peak by the middle of the year, while also suggesting interest rates will remain low. That helped halt a streak of declines for the S&P 500 and Dow industrials.
Stocks, especially hard-hit sectors such as tech, appeared to regain some ground. But new pricing data released Wednesday and Thursday showed inflation remained hot last month, complicating the outlook. Stocks dropped Thursday, led by a 2.5% slide in the Nasdaq.
Lackluster earnings from some big U.S. banks, along with weak retail sales and manufacturing data, sent most of the market lower again on Friday until a late-session buying rush pushed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq back into positive territory. The S&P 500 added 3.82 points, or less than 0.1%, to 4662.85, and the Nasdaq gained 86.94 points, or 0.6%, to 14893.75. The Dow fell 201.81 points, or 0.6%, to 35911.81.
“We expect a more volatile environment, with big up days and big down days. Perception of inflation will be a driving force in the direction of the market,” said
David Donabedian,
chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth US. “It will be a bumpy ride.”
The late Friday turnaround wasn’t enough to avert another down week. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended up falling 0.3% over the last five trading days, while the Dow shed 0.9%. Markets are closed Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, shortening next week’s trading schedule.
The U.S. dollar last year saw its largest increase in value since 2015. That is good for many American consumers, but it could also put a dent in stocks and the U.S. economy. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains. Photo illustration: Sebastian Vega/WSJ
On Friday, the first dose of fourth-quarter corporate earnings reports gave investors a sobering outlook on corporate growth this year. Quarterly profits fell by double-digit percentages at
posted higher quarterly profit, and market gains lifted the investment firm’s assets under management above $10 trillion. Despite that, its shares declined $18.98, or 2.2%, to $848.60.
Still, analysts remain upbeat on corporate profits, predicting growth across the S&P 500.
Mark Haefele,
chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said he expects another positive quarter, with earnings growth of 30% over the prior year.
Manufacturers, material firms and consumer discretionary stocks were also down following the economic data. Besides that,
declined $8.93, or 2.8%, to $308.46 after the paint maker lowered its guidance, citing a shortage of raw materials amid supply-chain and labor constraints.
Rising yields have motivated investors to rotate out of technology stocks.
Photo:
Courtney Crow/Associated Press
Some buying of large-cap growth stocks gave the market, and the Nasdaq, some support, as investors returned to a trade that tends to work well during periods of economic uncertainty.
jumped after Macau released a draft law that would cut the tenure for new casino licenses in half, but wouldn’t reduce the number of licenses. Las Vegas Sands added $5.33, or 14%, to $42.99, and Wynn Resorts gained $7.24, or 8.6%, to $91.47.
Meanwhile, bond yields resumed their climb. Expectations for an interest-rate rise as soon as March have caused some investors to sell government bonds, pushing up yields. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note ticked up to 1.771% Friday, from 1.708% Thursday.
“Equity markets will continue to take their cues from the bond market,” said
Hugh Gimber,
a strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. “What’s becoming clear is the Fed is realizing that inflationary pressures are larger and more broad-based than they previously expected.”
Cryptocurrency dogecoin jumped 12% from its 5 p.m. ET level Thursday after Elon Musk said Tesla was accepting payment for some merchandise with the currency, which was originally started as a joke. Bitcoin was recently down less than 1%.
Overseas, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 fell 1%.
South Korea’s central bank raised interest rates to pre-pandemic levels to fight inflation, and signaled that more increases could come this year. The country’s benchmark Kospi index declined 1.4%. Other major Asian stock indexes also closed lower. China’s Shanghai Composite fell 1%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 shed 1.3%.
Corrections & Amplifications For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.3%. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was the Dow that fell 0.3% and the Nasdaq that declined 0.9%. (Corrected on Jan. 14)
HYDERABAD: It is going to be a new challenge to the police searching for the missing Indian Army jawan with the turn of the month. With his monthly salary expected to be deposited in his account, police are now literally keeping their fingers crossed on what his move would be. B Sai Kiran Reddy of Siddipet district went missing on December 6. He withdrew all his money and also the small amounts that his family has been depositing just so that he does not find it difficult to survive. But now with his salary expected to be credited into his account from the Army, the jawan will have access to more money. What has become unpredictable is what he will do with that. Will he continue to be in Telangana as he has been over the last 20 days, as he has been in hiding? Or make a large withdrawal to travel somewhere else? It could also be possible that he could make use of the money to pay for his stay wherever he will. Police are keeping their fingers crossed on his next move. “We are sparing no effort to trace him. We have been tracking every movement and we are getting to know where he is withdrawing money. But he has been elusive as it appears he has deliberately been trying to hide. He has neither reported for work at Faridkot at his unit nor contacted his family or friends,” Husnabad ACP Satish told TOI. The 21-year-old jawan Sai Kiran Reddy of Pothireddypalli in Cheriyal of Siddipet left Hyderabad by flight to Delhi on December 5. The following day he was supposed to report at his unit in Faridkot but got down the train at Bathinda and took a cab back to Delhi. He then surfaced in Telangana. Police have found that he withdrew money in Karimnagar, Narsampet in Warangal. The last trace was in Bhadrachalam where he withdrew even small amounts which the family had deposited for his sustenance at the suggestion of the police.
said construction work has resumed at more than 90% of its stalled residential projects, adding that it has picked up the pace of delivering apartments promised to home buyers across the country.
in a statement Sunday night, said more than 80% of its suppliers of materials and decorative services have “resumed cooperation,” and that it has signed thousands of new contracts with various suppliers. At the end of August, the developer disclosed that construction had been suspended at some projects after it fell behind on payments. And by October, hundreds of Evergrande’s unfinished developments were affected by work stoppages.
With just a few days to go before the end of 2021, Evergrande said it intends to deliver 39,000 homes in 115 projects to buyers across China in December. It compared that to its completion of fewer than 10,000 units in each of the preceding three months.
The world’s most indebted real-estate firm Evergrande has embarked on a social media campaign to show construction has resumed and says it’s doing whatever it takes to deliver homes. WSJ compares these posts with ones from upset buyers. Photo Composite: Emily Siu
In a post on social media Monday, Evergrande said apartment projects have been handed over in batches in 18 provinces and it released photos of completed buildings adorned with bright red decorations and people signing papers to take ownership of their homes.
Despite this, Evergrande still has many more commitments to fulfill and its debt crisis remains unresolved. The 25-year-old developer used to be one of the country’s largest by contracted sales and is on the hook to deliver units to more than one million people. Many buyers made large down payments on unfinished flats, expecting to take ownership of them in a few years.
Hui Ka Yan,
Evergrande’s founder and chairman, said that “under the care and guidance of governments at all levels,” as well as support from partners, financial institutions and other constituents, the developer has made progress in its commitments to homeowners.
He added that Evergrande would do whatever it takes to resume work and deliver homes and predicted that the firm will eventually be able to “resume sales, resume operations, and pay off debts.”
Hui Ka Yan, China Evergrande’s chairman, in Hong Kong in 2019.
Photo:
Paul Yeung/Bloomberg News
The company’s statement followed comments over the weekend from two Chinese regulators which said they would safeguard the rights of homeowners and keep the property sector stable. Beijing has been trying to prevent Evergrande’s debt crisis from hurting the many small businesses and ordinary citizens that the developer owes money and apartments to.
Wang Menghui,
head of China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said in an interview with the state-run Xinhua News Agency that the regulator will address the risks of some leading developers that fail to deliver projects on time, with the goal of “guaranteeing home deliveries, protecting people’s livelihoods and maintaining social stability.”
The People’s Bank of China separately said—as part of a wide-ranging statement on the economy—that it would protect the rights and interests of homeowners and promote the healthy development of the country’s real-estate market.
Evergrande, the world’s most indebted developer, has been struggling under the weight of roughly $300 billion in liabilities, including around $20 billion in international bonds. The developer has missed payment deadlines on some of its dollar bonds, setting the stage for a massive and complex restructuring. Major credit raters have declared it to be in default.
Earlier this month, the conglomerate sought help from the government of its home province, Guangdong. It has since set up a risk-management committee that includes representatives from several state-backed entities.
Evergrande recently said the committee is working to help contain its risks and will engage with its creditors. Some international bondholders, however, have said there has been little communication from the company so far, the Journal reported last week.
The company’s Hong Kong-listed shares have plunged in value this year to historic lows and its dollar bonds are trading at deeply distressed levels. Markets in Hong Kong were closed Monday for a public holiday.
Stock futures are down at the end of a week that saw major central banks chart divergent courses as they confront inflation. Here’s what we’re watching in Friday’s action:
shares ran out of gas premarket, dropping 9.6%. The electric-vehicle startup plans to start construction next year on a second U.S. manufacturing facility in Georgia, placing a hefty bet on its ability to steadily increase sales in the coming years.
added 5.5% premarket. The company posted a 14% increase in revenue for its fiscal second quarter, as higher shipping rates helped offset rising costs from labor shortages.
is in talks to buy the electronic-medical-records company, according to people familiar with the matter, a deal that could be worth around $30 billion. Oracle shares slipped 3.6% premarket.
Cerner’s stock got a premarket boost after it was reported that Oracle was in talks to acquire the company.
added 3.7% premarket, but that’s not much after the prior day’s 34% loss for the crypto stock. The shares have been subject to large swings since the company went public in October, including more than tripling Oct. 25 on news of a
slipped 1.1%. Health authorities said the rate of a rare but serious blood-clotting disorder associated with the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine is higher than previously detected.
is among the companies reporting earnings on Friday.
Chart of the Day
Investors say Chinese authorities are likely to ease up somewhat on the embattled real-estate sector and to loosen monetary policy, helping support Chinese corporate borrowers more broadly.
Prakruti Prakash took care of the tree by watering its roots everyday.
HYDERABAD: A 70-year-old banyan tree which got uprooted due to heavy rains in Rajanna Sircilla district three months ago may get a new lease of life. A tree lover, Prakruti Prakash, took care of the tree by watering its roots everyday and has now seen the fruit of his labour. The tree has shown signs of life and he is planning on transplanting it. Prakash intends to transplant the tree at a school. Since the process may cost around Rs 50,000, he is also looking at like-minded people to chip in to see that the tree regains its lost glory and students will be able to play or study under its shade. The tree had got uprooted on the outskirts of Suddala village in Konaraopet mandal in the agriculture fields belonging to Burra Bhoomaih Goud and Burra Ramesh Goud. Prakash noticed that the tree was drying up and got into the act. “The tree looked majestic when it was standing but now it was fallen,” Prakash said. He took permission from another farmer to draw water from a bore in his agricultural field and began to water the fallen tree. With the tree coming to see and new leaves seen on it, Prakash’s heart revived.
A historic surge of cash has swept into exchange-traded funds, spurring asset managers to launch new trading strategies that could be undone by a market downturn.
This year’s inflows into ETFs world-wide crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time at the end of November, surpassing last year’s total of $735.7 billion, according to Morningstar Inc. data. That wave of money, along with rising markets, pushed global ETF assets to nearly $9.5 trillion, more than double where the industry stood at the end of 2018.
Most of that money has gone into low-cost U.S. funds that track indexes run by Vanguard Group,
, which together control more than three-quarters of all U.S. ETF assets. Analysts said rising stock markets, including a 25% lift for the S&P 500 this year, and a lack of high-yielding alternatives have boosted interest in such funds.
“You have this historical precedent where you have tumultuous equity markets, and more and more investors have made their way to index products,” said
Rich Powers,
head of ETF and index product management at Vanguard.
Asset managers are looking to actively managed funds, some with narrow themes, in search of an unfilled niche not already dominated by the industry’s juggernauts, analysts and executives said. VanEck, for example, earlier this month rolled out an active ETF targeting the food industry. In March, Tuttle Capital Management launched its
which is bullish on stocks popular with individual investors.
Firms including Dimensional Fund Advisors have converted mutual funds into active ETFs. Meanwhile, bigger firms have rolled out ETFs that mimic popular mutual funds, including Fidelity Investments’ Magellan and Blue Chip Growth funds.
“We should have a broad offering of ETFs that stand alongside a broad offering of mutual funds,” said
Gerard O’Reilly,
Dimensional’s co-chief executive, of his company. “Choose your own adventure.”
As ETFs, baskets of securities that trade as easily as stocks, have boomed this year, investors poured a record $84 billion into ones that pick combinations of securities in search of outperformance rather than tracking swaths of the stock market. That represents about 10% of all inflows into U.S. ETFs, up from nearly 8% last year, according to Morningstar.
Asset managers long known for running mutual funds are rushing to take advantage of investors’ interest in active ETFs. More than half of the record 380 ETFs launched in the U.S. this year are actively managed, according to FactSet. Fidelity, Putnam and
are among the firms that have rolled out actively managed ETFs in 2021. Firms new to ETFs have also entered the fray.
The top 20 fastest-growing ETFs, largely run by Vanguard and BlackRock, this year pulled in nearly 40% of all flows, charged an average fee of less than 0.10 percentage point and tracked benchmarks of some sort.
Many active ETFs remain comparatively small and charge fees higher than passive funds, putting a swath of new products at risk of closing over the next several years. ETFs usually need between $50 million and $100 million in assets within five years of launching to become profitable, analysts and executives say; funds below those levels have tended to close.
Of the nearly 600 active ETFs in the U.S., three-fifths have less than $100 million in assets, according to FactSet data. More than half are below $50 million.
“You’re going to see a lot of those firms take a hard look at their future,” said
Elisabeth Kashner,
FactSet’s director of ETF research.
The stock market’s bull run has helped buoy many ETF providers, Ms. Kashner said, adding that firms have in 2021 closed the fewest number of funds in eight years. But a market pullback, which most stock-market strategists anticipate, could flush out weaker players, she said.
Vanguard has been a beneficiary of high inflows to funds that track indexes. A statue of founder John C. Bogle.
Photo:
Ryan Collerd for The Wall Street Journal
ETF closures generally climbed over the past decade, and firms closed a record 277 ETFs last year as the coronavirus pulled markets down. Many held few assets. About a third of all active ETFs are marked as having a medium or high risk of closure, according to FactSet data that take into account assets, flows and fund closure history.
Factors that have helped stoke active launches, analysts and executives said, include rules streamlined by regulators in late 2019 that made ETFs easier to launch. The approval of the first semitransparent active ETFs, which shield some holdings from the public’s eye, followed.
Analysts also said the success of ARK Investment Management Chief Executive
Cathie Wood
in 2020 showed how active ETFs can score big returns and pull in substantial sums of money. Several of ARK’s funds doubled last year, and its assets approached $60 billion earlier this year, though many of its bets have slumped in 2021.
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Most other active managers aren’t doing much better. Two-thirds of large-cap managers of mutual funds have fallen short of benchmarks this year, while roughly 10% of the 371 U.S. active ETFs with full-year performance data are beating the S&P 500. More than a third are flat or negative for 2021.
“Active management is a zero-sum game,” said FactSet’s Ms. Kashner. “Beating the benchmark quarter after quarter, year after year, is a very difficult task at which active managers have traditionally struggled. The ETF wrapper doesn’t change that calculus.”
HYDERABAD: A 25-year-old man was arrested here for allegedly harassing a woman by sending obscene messages to her mobile phone by posing as a Crime Investigation Department (CID) official, police said. The woman in her complaint to the police stated that she was receiving WhatsApp messages and video calls from an unknown mobile number besides obscene videos and images to her mobile, a release from Rachakonda Police Commissionerate said. The man, who introduced himself as a CID official, asked the victim to make nude video calls and threatened to upload her morphed photos on social media if she failed to oblige. When the woman blocked his number he continued to call from other numbers. Based on the complaint, a case was registered and the accused was arrested on November 15. During interrogation, it was found that the accused was a porn addict and he targetted unknown women on social media platforms with an intent to make friends and develop intimacy with them. The stalker used to make random WhatsApp video calls to unknown numbers by concealing his face and when someone responded, he would make sure it is a female and then make frequent calls and harass them, they said. During one such attempts he happened to make a WhatsApp video call to the complainant and sent obscene content to her, posing as a CID official, they added.
