Several bank names will report earnings this week
Stocks futures are higher Monday, as investors look ahead to a week jam-packed with quarterly reports -- most notably from the banking sector. Fresh off its fourth-straight winning week, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures are up 45 points, while futures on the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) and S&P 500 Index (SPX) are also above breakeven.
Continue reading for more on today's market, including:
- Inflation data highlighted a wild week on Wall Street.
- What lies ahead for March's Cinderella ETF?
- Plus, banking giant reports earnings; why MSFT is higher; and bull notes for biotech stock.
5 Things You Need to Know Today
- The Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE) saw more than 1.2 million call contracts and 835,645 put contracts exchanged on Friday. The single-session equity put/call ratio rose to 0.65 and the 21-day moving average stayed at 0.78.
- Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE:SCHW) is down 0.9% before the bell, despite the financial institution announcing better-than-expected first-quarter earnings. Revenue, however, missed analysts' estimates. Charles Schwab stock sports a 39% year-to-date deficit.
- Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) was last seen up 1.5% ahead on the open on news that Samsung is considering using the company's Bing as its default search engine. Plus, Barclays hiked its price target to $310 from $280. MSFT sports a 19.3% year-to-date lead.
- Biogen Inc (NASDAQ:BIIB) is up 1.5% premarket after two pre-earnings bull notes. Specifically, Piper Sandler upgraded the biotech stock to "overweight' and hiked its price target to $346, while Wedbush raised its price objective to $263. Year-over-year, BIIB is up 35.6%.
-
Asian Markets Higher Ahead of China GDP Data
Asian markets kicked off the week with gains, led by a 1.7% pop from Hong Kong’s Hang Seng. China’s Shanghai Composite tacked on 1.4% ahead of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) data due out tomorrow. Reuters’ poll of economists predicts 4% growth for the fourth quarter. South Korea’s Kospi pared losses to finish 0.2% higher, while Japan’s Nikkei added 0.07%.
Over in Europe, bourses are more mixed. Mining and commodity stocks have London’s FTSE 100 0.2% higher at last check, with International Distributions Service also a notable gainer. The German DAX and French CAC 40 are both off by 0.1%.