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Today is a jam-packed day of earnings news and economic data. The equity futures market has backtracked, undercut by some growth concerns and expectations for some consolidation following a huge rebound by the market that has featured six straight winning sessions for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500.
Currently, the S&P 500 futures are down 76 points and are trading 1.4% below fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are down 374 points and are trading 1.9% below fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down 348 points and are trading 0.9% below fair value.
There is a little something for everyone in today's news flow, so it wouldn't be surprising to see some seesawing in the market following today's open.
Dow component Caterpillar (CAT), which came up shy of Q1 consensus estimates, has seesawed in pre-market trading. It had been down as much as 6% but is now up 1.7%.
Caterpillar was a headliner on an earnings calendar that also featured reports from Visa (V), Starbucks (SBUX), Booking Holdings (BKNG), Mondelez Intl. (MDLZ), Snap (SNAP), First Solar (FSLR), Seagate Technology (STX), Humana (HUM), and Stanley Black & Decker (SWK) to name a few. Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta Platforms (META) are the main luminaries reporting results after today's close.
There are too many results to cover in this space, so be sure to visit Briefing.com's Earnings Results Calendar for the full rundown. The responses, in general, have varied. Starbucks, for instance, is down 9.7% as it deals with some company-specific matters on top of macro issues, whereas Seagate Technology (STX) is up 5.9% following its report.
Super Micro Computer (SMCI), which didn't report results but instead issued a fiscal Q3 warning that was attributed to some delays in customer decisions, is down nearly 20%.
That brings us to the economic data. China reported some disappointing manufacturing and services PMI data for April; however, the eurozone saw better-than-expected 0.4% qtr/qtr GDP growth in Q1. As for the U.S. reports this morning, they are as follows:
- MBA Mortgage Applications Index -4.2% wk/wk, with refinance applications down 4% and purchase applications down 4%.
- The April ADP Employment Change Report showed an estimated 62,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 128,000), and the pay for job-stayers rose 4.5% year-over-year, which was a slight deceleration from March.
- The Q1 Employment Cost Index was up 0.9%, as expected, for the three-month period ending in March 2025, following a 0.9% increase for the three-month period ending in December 2024. Wages and salaries increased 0.8%, versus 1.0% for the prior quarter, and benefit costs jumped 1.2%, versus 0.8% for the prior quarter.
- The key takeaway from the report is that employment costs have softened year-over-year, with compensation costs increasing 3.6% for the 12 months ending in March 2025, versus 4.2% for the 12 months ending in March 2024.
- The Adv. Q1 GDP report showed a 0.3% decline in real GDP (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%), with net exports subtracting 4.83 percentage points from growth, following a 2.4% increase in Q4. The GDP Price Deflator jumped 3.7% (Briefing.com consensus 3.1%) following a 2.3% increase in Q4.
- The key takeaway from the report is that there was obvious frontrunning of the tariff measures, which showed up in a 41.3% increase in imports. Separately, consumer spending growth was decent at 1.8%, yet that was a marked slowdown from the 4.0% growth seen in Q4.
The Treasury market, it seems, keyed in on the GDP Price Deflator. The 10-yr note yield spiked from 4.14% to 4.22% soon after the GDP release, but has backed down to 4.19%, up two basis points from yesterday's settlement.
