Subdued Wall St stocks ended in the red on Wednesday and futures were down again ahead of Thursday’s bell.
And there was no ‘leap day’ for cloud data firm Snowflake, whose shares plunged 22% overnight after an earnings miss, warning on consumer demand ahead and the appointment of a new chief executive.
U.S. Treasury yields ticked higher into the PCE release and as Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress announced a deal for advancing the 12 annual bills that fund an array of federal programs and which could avert government shutdowns as soon as Saturday.
With dollar/yen leading the way, the dollar index fell back.
November’s election is never far from investors’ minds at this stage of the year.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, giving him a boost as he tries to delay criminal prosecutions while running to regain the presidency.
The Supreme Court set the case for oral argument during the week of April 22.
Elsewhere, mainland Chinese shares jumped more than 1% as regulators said they would strengthen supervision of derivatives and announced punishment for a hedge fund for excessive, high-frequency trading in share index futures.
With northbound inflows to stocks catching the eye, there’s also some tempering on the negativity as investors await the outcome of next week National People’s Congress for a series of economic targets and policy priorities for this year.
In Europe, data showed inflation fell in six economically important German states in February – encouraging hopes that German inflation is continuing on its downward trajectory. Spanish and French inflation slowed too, albeit by less than forecast in the latter.
Traders were also parsing signals from ECB officials about changes to how it manages short-term interest rate management as it runs down its bloated balance sheet.
Shares in London-listed hedge fund firm Man Group rallied 3.6% to their highest since mid-March 2023 after it reported assets under management rose to a record $167.5 billion last year.
