Walmart slashed its quarterly and full-year profit estimates
Stock futures are tumbling on Tuesday, after Walmart (WMT) announced it's cutting its quarterly and full-year profit outlook as inflation continues to weigh on consumers. While several other blue chips posted upbeat earnings reports, Walmart's warning is sparking a selloff among retail stocks. Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures are eyeing a 117-point drop, while futures on both the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) and the S&P 500 Index (SPX) are also swimming in red ink. Investors are looking ahead to a week packed with Big Tech earnings and the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting, which begins today.
Continue reading for more on today's market, including:
- Schaeffer's Senior V.P. of Research Todd Salamone sees good things ahead for the SPX.
- Why options traders have been targeting AMC Entertainment stock.
- Plus, more on Walmart's slashed forecast; 1 blue chip's earnings beat; and unpacking Coinbase's SEC probe.
5 Things You Need to Know Today
- The Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE) saw 950,829 call contracts and 664,011 put contracts traded on Monday. The single-session equity put/call ratio fell to 0.70, and the 21-day moving average stayed at 0.67.
- Higher food and fuel costs have forced Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT) to cut prices in order to reduce excess inventory as consumers tighten their budgets. As a result, the mega retailer slashed its outlook for both the current quarter and full year. WMT was last seen 9.3% lower ahead of the open, cutting deeper into its 8.8% year-to-date deficit.
- Blue-chip manufacturer 3M Co (NYSE:MMM) is up 4.4% in electronic trading, after reporting a second-quarter top- and bottom-line beat. Further, the company said it would spin off its health care business into a separate publicly traded company. Year-over-year, however, MMM remains down 33.1%.
- Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN) was last seen down 5% before Wall Street's opening bell, following a Bloomberg report that said the cryptocurrency exchange operator is the subject of a probe by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to the report, the probe is focusing on the trading of digital assets and whether or not they should have been registered as securities. In 2022, COIN was already 73.4% lower.
- In addition to the Fed meeting, the S&P Case-Shiller national home price index, the consumer confidence index, and home sales data are also due out today.
South Korea Reports Better-Than-Expected GDP Growth
Asian markets were mostly higher today. Japan’s Nikkei was the only loser, falling 0.2% after the release of the The Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) meeting minutes for June. South Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose a higher-than-expected 0.7% in the second quarter, helping the Kospi add 0.4%. Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.7%, thanks to outsized gains from Alibaba (BABA), while China’s Shanghai Composite tacked on 0.8%.
Meanwhile, markets in Europe are mixed midday, as investors unpacked a slew of corporate earnings. London’s FTSE 100 is up 0.6% at last check, while the French CAC 40 slips 0.2%, and the German DAX moves 0.7% lower.