The G-7 summit is scheduled to take place today in Canada
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) are pointed lower this morning, after U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron squared off on Twitter ahead of today's Group of Seven (G-7) summit. Following jabs from Trump on trade, Macron tweeted, "The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6-country agreement if need be." Trump's tweets also took aim at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ahead of the two-day G-7 meeting in Quebec, which will include leaders from Japan, Italy, the U.K., and Germany. The Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) is also signaling a sharply lower open, on track to extend yesterday's tech sell-off.
Continue reading for more on today's market, including:
5 Things You Need to Know Today
- The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) saw 1.2 million call contracts traded on Thursday, compared to 656,252 put contracts. The single-session equity put/call ratio rose to 0.56, while the 21-day moving average remained at 0.58.
- J.P. Morgan Securities upgraded DexCom, Inc. (NASDAQ:DXCM) to "overweight" from "neutral" and hiked its price-target to $115 from $80 early this morning. DXCM has been an outperformer, up 56% year-to-date as of last night's close at $89.49. The medical equipment concern is up 3% in electronic trading.
- Shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) are 1% lower in pre-market trading, after the company announced Ericsson vet Hans Vestberg as its incoming CEO, with a start date of Aug. 1. Today's early drop has VZ pulling back from a test of its overhead 200-day moving average, which has been emerging as resistance in recent months.
- Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO) is down 2.2% in electronic trading, after the company last night reported a fiscal second-quarter earnings beat, but warned that weakness in its wireless business will persist into the third quarter. AVGO has been rallying higher this month and recently surged above resistance at its 200-day moving average, pushing the stock's 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) to an overbought reading of 75 ahead of last night's results.
- Aside from G-7 headlines, today is expected to be a quiet day, with no notable economic data or earnings set to report.
Global Markets Struggle Ahead of G-7 Summit
It was a down day for Asian stock markets, as caution grew ahead of the meeting of G-7 leaders. Stocks in China especially struggled. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.8%, with tech heavyweight Tencent sliding more than 3%. The Shanghai Composite, meanwhile, shed 1.4%, and in Japan, the Nikkei gave back 0.6%. Rounding out the region, the Kospi dipped 0.8% in South Korea.
European stocks are also struggling for upside today. Among individual movers, Deutsche Bank is in focus amid reports the company is considering a merger with Germany’s Commerzbank. Also out of Germany, investors took in lackluster industrial production data for April. Against this backdrop, the German DAX is down 0.5% at last check, France’s CAC 40 has dipped 0.01%, and London's FTSE 100 is fractionally higher.