Palo Alto Networks, Deere, Tesla, VF: What to Watch When the Stock Market Opens Today

Here’s what we’re watching ahead of Friday’s opening bell.

• U.S. stock futures edged up ahead of fresh data on manufacturing and services sectors that will provide more insights into the pace of the economic recovery.
• Futures tied to the S&P 500 ticked up 0.3%, suggesting that the broad market gauge may end the week on a tepid note after dropping 0.4% by the close on Thursday. Nasdaq-100 futures edged 0.3% higher Friday, pointing to big technology stocks sealing their best week since mid April. Read our full market wrap here.
• Bitcoin added 2% from its 5 p.m. ET price, trading at about $40,900. The digital asset has rebounded sharply from its Wednesday intraday low of $30,444.93, but is still down over 18% since 5 p.m. last Friday.

What’s Coming Up

• IHS Markit’s preliminary U.S. manufacturing index for May, due at 9:45 a.m. ET, is expected to hold at 60.5, unchanged from its end-of-April reading, and the services index is expected to tick down to 64.3 from 64.7.
• U.S. existing-home sales, due at 10 a.m., are expected to inch up to an annual pace of 6.02 million in April from 6.01 million a month earlier.

Market Movers to Watch

• Palo Alto Networks

  
  PANW 5.08%
  

  shares climbed 5.7% premarket. The cybersecurity firm on Thursday boosted key financial goals for its current fiscal year.

• Deere

  
  DE 3.18%
  

  shares gained 2.1% ahead of the bell after it reported higher profit and sales for its fiscal second quarter due to strong market conditions and broad improvement across divisions and geographies—but it expects increased supply-chain pressures for the rest of the year.

• VF

  
  VFC -7.96%
  

  shares dropped 1.8% premarket after the apparel company’s quarterly earnings came in below analysts’ forecasts.

• Foot Locker

  
  FL 2.40%
  

  shares rose 1.7% after the shoe retailer’s profits and same-store sales figures both beat expectations.

• Carnival

  
  CCL -0.11%
  

  shares rose 1.3% premarket. The cruise operator said it was planning to resume Alaska sailings in July, in what would be among the first sailings out of the U.S. since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Rival

  Royal Caribbean

  
  RCL -1.05%
  

  was also up, by 1.1%.

• Ross Stores

  
  ROST 0.52%
  

  gained 1.6% premarket. The retailer saw sales jump from a year earlier and it swung to a first-quarter profit.

• Flowers Foods

  
  FLO -3.04%
  

  shares dropped 2.3% premarket. The packaged bakery foods producer swung to a profit in the first quarter but sales declined due to tougher comparisons from last year.

• Tesla

  
  TSLA -0.00%
  

  shares inched up 1.6% premarket. Elon Musk told a Russian innovation conference that Tesla production could eventually come to Russia, according to reports.

Market Facts

• This week’s crypto crash has helped erase almost 40% from bitcoin’s price from a peak of almost $65,000 in mid-April.
• Tencent’s stock has lost a fifth of its value—nearly $200 billion—from its January peak as sharply higher regulatory scrutiny has sunk the whole Chinese tech sector. Alibaba, which was hit by a record $2.8 billion fine for anticompetitive behavior, has lost one-third of its value since October.

Chart of the Day

• Europe is losing IPO market share as firms bypass local exchanges to list in New York through blank-check company deals. 

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