SlateStone Wealth chief market strategist Kenny Polcari and The Leuthold Group chief investment strategist Jim Paulsen on how investors should react to recent market movements and the Federal Reserve.
U.S. stock futures rallied Friday as the major averages looked to put their steepest one-day decline in nearly a month in the rearview mirror.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 243 points, or 0.71%, while S&P 500 futures rose 0.46% and Nasdaq 100 futures ticked up 0.01%. The major averages on Thursday lost between 0.72% and 0.86%, making for the biggest one-day drops since June 18.
The appetite for stocks caused money to rotate out of the bond market, causing the yield on the 10-year note to rise 5 basis points to 1.34% after finishing Thursday at its lowest level since Feb. 18.
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In stocks, financials bounced back as selling in the U.S. Treasury market swung the yield curve steeper.
Meanwhile, President Biden on Friday signed an executive order targeting bank mergers by calling on the Federal Reserve and Department of Justice to step up scrutiny of those deals.
Elsewhere, cigarette maker Philip Morris International on Friday agreed to buy British drugmaker Vectura for $1.44 billion (1.05 billion pounds) as it looks to diversify away from tobacco.
General Motors Co. was initiated with an outperform rating and an $85 price target at Wedbush Securities as the Detroit-based automaker looks to roll out “game-changing” battery technology and at least 20 electric models over the next two years.
In earnings, Levi Strauss & Co. beat Wall Street estimates on both the top and bottom lines and issued a full-year profit forecast that easily exceeding expectations. The apparel maker also hiked its quarterly dividend by 2 cents to 8 cents a share.
In commodities, West Texas Intermediate crude oil jumped 79 cents to $73.73 a barrel and gold edged up $3.40 to $1,803.60 an ounce.
Overseas markets were mostly higher.
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European bourses rallied across the board with France’s CAC 40 trading up 1.73%, Germany’s DAX 30 gaining 0.89% and Britain’s FTSE 100 advancing 0.71%.
In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index outperformed, rising 0.7%, while China’s Shanghai Composite and Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.04% and 0.63%, respectively.
