Wall St set to open lower ahead of manufacturing, jobs data

WALL Street was set to open lower on Tuesday ahead of economic data that could clear the air on a soft landing for the U.S. economy, while investors assessed mixed earnings from pharmaceutical heavyweights Merck and Pfizer.

Merck rose 1.5% in premarket trading as it raised its full-year profit forecast after posting a smaller-than-expected second-quarter loss, while Pfizer slipped as it missed estimates for quarterly revenue.

Uber climbed 2.3% after it forecast third-quarter operating profit above expectations, banking on a growing demand for ride hailing services.

Caterpillar edged up 0.9% in choppy trading as the global economic bellwether reported a rise in second-quarter profit, though it warned of a sequential fall in current-quarter sales and margins.

U.S. second-quarter earnings are now expected to fall 6.4% from a year earlier, compared with a 7.9% decline estimated a week ago, as per Refinitiv data.

“So far things have played out well and we’re looking forward to continued strengths and the outlook seems to be firming,” said Peter Andersen, founder of Andersen Capital Management.

All eyes will be on the ISM Manufacturing survey which is expected to show that July U.S. factory activity contracted less than the month before. Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June is also on tap.

The manufacturing and employment surveys are expected at 10 a.m. ET.

“It’s a delicate balance, where we want to see some contraction, but not too much contraction, and then we also have to factor in the sense that rate increases have not fully played out,” Andersen added.

Investors will also parse commentary by Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, a voting member this year, for clues on the U.S. central bank’s monetary policy path.

Hurting shares of megacap growth firms such as Tesla and Microsoft, whose valuations come under pressure when borrowing costs rise, yield on the benchmark 10-year treasury note climbed over 4%.

U.S. equities ended July on a strong footing, riding on the back of better-than-expected earnings, and hopes of a soft landing for the economy that has stayed strong in the face of tighter credit conditions while inflation has cooled.

The benchmark S&P 500 hit a more than 15-month high on Monday, and is 4.3% away from breaching its record high closing level, notched on Jan. 3, 2022.

At 8:24 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 69 points, or 0.19%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 15.5 points, or 0.34%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 77.5 points, or 0.49%.

JetBlue Airways tumbled 5.4% after lowering its annual profit forecast, citing a hit from the termination of its revenue-sharing deal with American Airlines.

Arista Networks jumped 15.4% as the network gear maker forecast quarterly revenue above estimates after delivering better-than-expected results.

U.S.-listed shares of Chinese firms such as Bilibili and Alibaba were off 1.7% and 3.3%, respectively, after a survey showed China’s factory activity swung to contraction in July.

Global long/short hedge funds, which bet whether the stocks will fall or rise, were forced to unwind bearish positions that were dragging down performance in July, a Goldman Sachs report showed on Monday. – Reuters