CNBC Daily Open: Congratulations On Getting Through May - Free Websites, Share News And Posts Publicly

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Thursday June 01 2023

Congratulations on getting through May.

Markets

S&P500 Close

4,179.83

-0.61%

S&P500 Futures

4,192.25

+0.04%

Bitcoin

27,200.24

-2.26%

As of WED, MAY 31, 2023 • 07:38 ET

What you need to know today

The bill to suspend the U.S. debt limit passed a procedural step Wednesday, and will go to a final vote in the Republican-majority House later today — approximately an hour after this newsletter lands in your inbox.

U.S. stocks slipped slightly Wednesday, with all three major indexes falling less than 1%. European markets traded lower too. France’s CAC 40 Index lost 1.54% even as a flash figure of the country’s inflation showed that it cooled to 6% in May, lower than the expected 6.4% year on year.

Financial markets are at risk of a sharp downturn amid today’s fragile economic outlook, European Central Bank Vice-President Luis de Guindos told CNBC. Tighter financial conditions after March’s banking turmoil, along with persistent inflation, pose a threat to stocks, he said.

Around 2,000 Amazon employees walked off the job Wednesday, in protest of the company’s return-to-office mandate, mass layoffs and environmental record. Separately, Amazon will pay the Federal Trade Commission more than $30 million to settle allegations of privacy lapses in its Alexa and Ring divisions.

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey from the Labor Department showed job openings increasing to more than 10 million in April, a higher number than March’s and more than economists expected. Still, note that JOLTS’ data lags: the numbers are for April, not May.

PRO Ever since Nvidia’s meteoric ascent last week, investors have been focusing on other semiconductor firms that would similarly benefit from the artificial intelligence boom. But investors shouldn’t ignore software companies that harness AI, advised Bank of America.

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The bottom line

Yeo Boon Ping | Thursday June 01 2023

The old Wall Street adage to sell in May and go away held true this year — aside from AI-related stocks, that is.

On the last trading day of May, the S&P 500 lost 0.61%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.41% and the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.63%. For the month, the S&P inched up 0.3%, the Dow sank 3.5% and the Nasdaq jumped 5.8%.

What jumps out here is the discrepancy between the Dow and the S&P. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was, quite clearly, enjoying the surge in AI-related stocks. The Dow was weighed down by losses of more than 10% in stocks like Nike, Walt Disney and Chevron. But the simple exclusion of Nvidia from the Dow was a big factor in the index’s poor showing compared with the S&P, a sign of how much heavy lifting Nvidia has been doing in May.

Cryptocurrency might want to divorce itself from traditional financial systems, but it can’t escape the gravitational pull of Wall Street. Bitcoin lost 2.77% and ether fell 2.2% yesterday; for the month, bitcoin’s down 7.9% and ether slid 2.05%, giving them their first losing month in 2023.

If history proves a reliable guide, June won’t be any better than May, unfortunately. According to The Stock Trader’s Almanac analysis of data from 1950 to 2022, in an average June, the S&P tends to rise 0.1% while the Dow typically loses 0.2%. Not very confidence-inspiring numbers, but a quick caveat: In markets, history tends not to rhyme.