Hennessy Funds CIO Ryan Kelley shares his market picks in the home improvement sector.
U.S. stock futures were lower Tuesday morning as investors digested earnings from big retailers and awaited a speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 195 points, or 0.54%, while S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.44% and 0.34%, respectively. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 on Monday closed at record highs for a fifth straight session.
Powell is scheduled to speak in a town hall at 1:30 p.m. ET. Market watchers will be paying close attention for any clues the Fed chairman may give as to when the central bank will begin to taper its asset purchases and raise interest rates.
Before that, investors will get a look into the health of the consumer with the 8:30 a.m. ET release of July retail sales, which are expected to have fallen by 0.3%
In stocks, Dow component Walmart reported earnings and revenue that exceeded Wall Street estimates as back-to-school shopping provided a lift. The big-box retailer forecast full-year and current-quarter profit ahead of what analysts were expecting.
Fellow Dow member Home Depot Inc. beat on both the top and bottom lines, but same-store sales grew by the smallest amount in two years as the do-it-yourself trend diminished amid a reopening of the economy.
Target Corp. and Lowe’s Companies Inc. are among the companies scheduled to release their quarterly results Wednesday.
Elsewhere, financial firms, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc., were lower as buying across the Treasury complex pushed the 10-year yield down four basis points to 1.23% while flattening the yield curve.
In commodities, West Texas Intermediate crude oil slid 55 cents to $66.74 a barrel and gold climbed $6.90 to $1,796.70 an ounce.
Overseas markets were mostly lower.
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European bourses were mixed with Germany’s DAX 30 and France’s CAC 40 sinking 0.21% and 0.52%, respectively, while Britain’s FTSE 100 ticked up 0.11%.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.36%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 1.66% and China’s Shanghai Composite tumbled 2%.
