Tag Archives: routine market

Investors Brace for More Market Tumult as Interest Rates Keep Rising

The stock market just finished a bruising year. Many market players don’t expect things to get better any time soon.  

Analysts at some of the biggest U.S. banks predict the stock market will retest its 2022 lows in the first half of the new year before beginning to rebound. Many investors say the ramifications of the Federal Reserve’s higher rates are just beginning to ripple through markets.

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to the highest levels since 2007, stoking mammoth swings across global markets and a steep selloff in assets from stocks and bonds to cryptocurrencies. The tumult that erased more than $12 trillion in value from the U.S. stock market—the largest such drawdown since at least 2001—is expected to continue as rates keep rising.

The S&P 500 ended the year down 19% after the conditions evaporated that had paved the way for years of a nearly uninterrupted stock-market rally and a run in some of the most speculative bets. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the S&P 500 to end 2023 at 4000, about a 4% rise from where it ended 2022. 

The volatility has been especially punishing for the market’s behemoths. Five big technology stocks accounted for about a quarter of the U.S. stock market’s total declines last year, a bruising selloff reminiscent of the dot-com bust two decades ago. 

Cryptocurrencies tumbled, splashy initial public offerings all but came to a halt and blank-check companies imploded to end the year, a stunning reversal of the mania that swept markets in the previous two years. 

“We are in a world where interest rates exist again,” said

Ben Inker,

co-head of asset allocation at Boston money manager GMO, which oversees $55 billion in assets. 

One of the biggest flip-flops occurred under the market’s surface. Investors abandoned the flashy tech and growth stocks that had propelled that market’s gains over the previous decade. 

And value stocks—traditionally defined as those that trade at a low multiple of their book value, or net worth—staged a revival after years of lackluster returns. 

The Russell 3000 Value index outperformed the Russell 3000 Growth index by almost 20 percentage points, its largest margin in Dow Jones Market Data records going back to 2001. 

Now, Mr. Inker and other investors—hunting for opportunities after an abysmal year for both stocks and bonds—say it is just the beginning of a big stock-market rotation. 

Money managers say they are positioning for an environment that bears little resemblance to the one to which many grew accustomed after the last financial crisis. The era of ultralow bond yields, mild inflation and accommodative Fed policy has ended, they say, likely recalibrating the market’s winners and losers for years to come.  

“A number of investors were trying to justify nosebleed valuation levels,” said

John Linehan,

a portfolio manager at

T. Rowe Price.

Now, “leadership going forward is going to be more diverse.” 

The Fed is set to keep raising interest rates and has indicated that it plans to keep them elevated through the end of 2023. Many economists forecast a recession ahead, while Wall Street remains fixated on whether inflation will recede after repeatedly underestimating its staying power.

Mr. Linehan said he expects the run in value stocks to continue and sees opportunities in shares of financial companies, thanks to higher interest rates. Others say energy stocks’ stellar run isn’t over just yet. Energy stocks within the S&P 500 gained 59% last year, their best stretch in history.

Some investors are positioning for bond yields to keep rising, potentially dealing a bigger blow to tech shares. Those stocks are especially vulnerable to higher rates because in many cases they are expected to earn outsize profits years down the road, a vulnerability in a world that values safe returns now. 

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note ended 2022 at 3.826%, the biggest one-year increase in yields since at least 1977, while bond prices tumbled. From risky corporate bonds to safer municipal debt, yields rose to some of their highest levels of the past decade, giving investors more choices for parking their cash. 

“I don’t think this next decade is going to be led by technology,” said

Mark Luschini,

chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. “This one-size-fits-all notion that you just buy a broad technology index or the Nasdaq-100 has changed.”

The Fed has indicated that it plans to keep rates elevated through the end of 2023.



Photo:

Ting Shen/Bloomberg News

The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index lost 33% in 2022, underperforming the broader S&P 500 by the widest margin since 2002. 

Investors yanked about $18 billion from mutual and exchange-traded funds tracking tech through November, on track for the biggest annual outflows on record in Morningstar Direct data going back to 1993. Funds tracking growth stocks recorded $94 billion in outflows, the most since 2016.

Meanwhile, investors have taken to bargain-hunting in the stock market, piling into value funds. Such funds recorded more than $30 billion of inflows, drawing money for the second consecutive year.

“Profitability and free cash flow are going to be very important” in the coming year, said Tiffany Wade, senior portfolio manager at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. 

Ms. Wade said she expects the Fed to be more aggressive than many investors currently forecast, leading to another rocky year. If the Fed puts a pause on raising interest rates over the next year, she thinks growth stocks might see a bounce.

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Other investors are heeding lessons from the years following the bursting of the tech bubble, when value stocks outperformed their growth counterparts.

Even after last year’s bruising declines, the technology sector trades at a wide premium to the S&P 500. Stocks in the energy, financial, materials and telecommunications sectors still appear cheap compared with the broader benchmark, according to Bespoke Investment Group data going back to 2010. 

Plus, big technology companies face stiffer competition and potentially tougher regulation, a setup that may disappoint investors who have developed lofty expectations for the group. 

Their run of impressive sales growth will likely sputter as well, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a recent note. Aggregate sales growth for megacap technology stocks is forecast to have risen 8% in 2022, below the 13% growth for the broader index. 

“I just don’t think the prior regime’s winners are going to be tomorrow’s winners,” said Eddie Perkin, chief investment officer of Eaton Vance Equity. “They’re still too expensive.”

Write to Gunjan Banerji at gunjan.banerji@wsj.com

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The stock market typically bottoms before the end of a Fed rate-hike cycle. Here’s how to make that bet pay off.

A lot of money can be made betting on when the Federal Reserve will “pivot” — that is, take its foot at least partially off the rate-hike gas pedal. Yet a lot of money can also be lost, as we saw on August 26 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.57%
lost more than 1,000 points after Fed Chair Jerome Powell dashed hopes that the Fed’s pivot had begun in July.

So it’s helpful to review past rate-hike cycles to see how investors fared when trying to anticipate when those cycles came to an end.

To do that, I focused on the six distinct rate-hike cycles since the Fed began specifically targeting the Fed funds rate. The table below reports how many days prior to the end of those cycles that the stock market hit its low. (Specifically, I focused on a six-month window prior to the end of each cycle, and determined when within that window the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.67%
hit its low.)

Start of rate-hike cycle End of rate hike cycle Days in advance of cycle’s end that S&P 500 hit its low S&P 500’s gain from low to end of rate hike cycle S&P 500’s gain 3 months after market’s low S&P 500’s gain 6 months after market’s low S&P 500’s gain 12 months after market’s low
30-Mar-83 9-Aug-84 16 +12.0% +13.2% +18.7% +30.3%
4-Jan-87 24-Feb-89 176 +11.1% +5.5% +12.7% +36.0%
3-Feb-94 1-Feb-95 55 +5.6% +9.9% +18.5% +38.3%
29-Jun-99 16-May-00 81 +10.0% +3.6% +13.1% -4.9%
29-Jun-04 29-Jun-06 16 +4.0% +7.3% +15.5% +24.5%
15-Dec-15 20-Dec-18 0 +0.0% +13.4% +19.4% +30.6%
  AVERAGE 57 +7.1% +8.8% +16.3% +25.8%

As you can see, the market hit its low an average of 57 days prior to the end of the Fed’s rate-hike cycle — about two months. Yet notice also that there is quite a range, from no lead time at one extreme to almost the entire six-month window on which I focused. Given that it’s hard to know when the Fed will actually begin to pivot, this wide range illustrates the uncertainty and risk associated with trying to reinvest in stocks in anticipation of a pivot.

Nevertheless, the table also shows that there are hefty gains to be had if you get it even partially right. For example, the S&P 500 gained an average of 7.1% over the period between the market’s pre-pivot low and the actual end of the rate-hike cycle. That’s an impressive return for a two-month period. Furthermore, the average gain over the six months following the pre-pivot low is a strong 16.3%, and over the 12 months following that low it is 25.8%.

How should you play this high-risk/high-reward situation? One way is to dollar-cost average up to whatever is your desired equity exposure. For example, you could divide into five tranches the total amount you want to eventually put back into the stock market, and invest each tranche in equities at the end of the next five calendar quarters. If you followed this approach — and it is just one of many possible ones — you’d be back to your target equity exposure by the beginning of 2024.

Such an approach won’t get you into stocks at the exact pre-pivot low, but hoping for that is a delusion. Yet the approach should get you an average buy-in price that is better than waiting. It should also protect you from days like August 26, when the market punished those who bet that the Fed had already started to pivot.

Mark Hulbert is a regular contributor to MarketWatch. His Hulbert Ratings tracks investment newsletters that pay a flat fee to be audited. He can be reached at mark@hulbertratings.com

More: Learn how to shake up your financial routine at the Best New Ideas in Money Festival on Sept. 21 and Sept. 22 in New York. Join Carrie Schwab, president of the Charles Schwab Foundation.

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Why stock market bulls are cheering the S&P 500’s close above 4,231

The S&P 500 index on Friday finished above a chart level that delivered a dose of encouragement to stock-market bulls arguing that the U.S. bear-market bottom is in, though technical analysts warned that it might not be a signal to go all in on equities.

The S&P 500
SPX,
+1.73%
on Friday rose 1.7% to close at 4,280.15. The finish above 4,231 would mean the large-cap benchmark has recovered — or retraced — more than 50% of its fall from a Jan. 3 record finish at 4796.56.

“Since 1950 there has never been a bear market rally that exceeded the 50% retracement and then gone on to make new cycle lows,” said Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG, in a note earlier this month.

Stocks rose across the board Friday, with the S&P 500 booking a fourth straight weekly gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+1.27%
advanced more than 420 points, or 1.3%, on Friday and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+2.09%
rose 2.1%. The S&P 500 attempted to complete the retracement in Thursday’s session, when it traded as high as 4,257.91, but gave up gains to end at 4,207.27.

Krinsky, in a Thursday update, had noted that an intraday breach of the level doesn’t cut it, but had cautioned that a close above 4,231 would still leave him cautious about the near-term outlook.

“Because the retracement is based on a closing basis, we would want to see a close above 4,231 to trigger that signal. Whether or not that happens, however, the tactical risk/reward looks poor to us here,” he wrote.

What’s so special about a 50% retracement? Many technical analysts pay attention to what’s known as the Fibonacci ratio, attributed to a 13th century Italian mathematician known as Leonardo “Fibonacci” of Pisa. It’s based on a sequence of whole numbers in which the sum of two adjacent numbers equals the next highest number (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13, 21 …).

If a number in the sequence is divided by the next number, for example 8 divided by 13, the result is near 0.618, a ratio that’s been dubbed the Golden Mean due to its prevalence in nature in everything from seashells to ocean waves to proportions of the human body. Back on Wall Street, technical analysts see key retracement targets for a rally from a significant low to a significant peak at 38.2%, 50% and 61.8%, while retracements of 23.6% and 76.4% are seen as secondary targets.

The push above the 50% retracement level during Thursday’s recession may have contributed to a round of selling itself, said Jeff deGraaf, founder of Renaissance Macro Research, in a Friday note.

He observed that the retracement corresponded to a 65-day high for the S&P 500, offering another indication of an improving trend in a bear market as it represents the highest level of the last rolling quarter. A 65-day high is often seen as a default signal for commodity trading advisers, not just in the S&P 500 but in commodity, bond and forex markets as well.

“That level coincidentally corresponded with the 50% retracement level of the bear market,” he wrote. “In essence, it forced the hand of one group to cover shorts (CTAs) while simultaneously giving another group (Fibonacci followers) an excuse to sell” on Thursday.

Krinsky, meanwhile, cautioned that previous 50% retracements in 1974, 2004 and 2009 all saw decent shakeouts shortly after clearing that threshold.

“Further, as the market has cheered ‘peak inflation’, we are now seeing a quiet resurgence in many commodities, and bonds continue to weaken,” he wrote Thursday.

See: Stock-market euphoria meets bond-market pessimism as ‘strange week’ comes to end

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Tech Stocks Lead Market Lower as Investors Await Inflation Data

U.S. stock indexes were lower Tuesday as investors monitored earnings reports and economic data ahead of inflation figures due later in the week.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.7%, a day after the broad index finished with modest losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.4% while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.5%.

Investors await consumer-price data on Wednesday that could set expectations for how the Federal Reserve will approach monetary policy at its coming meetings. In recent weeks, better-than-expected corporate earnings and strong labor-market data have eased concerns about an imminent U.S. recession, helping stock markets rebound from their lows. 

With inflation running at a multidecade high, investors say Wednesday’s consumer-price index update will be key to the outlook for rates and the direction of the market. 

“The market has enjoyed a risk-on environment since the lows of mid-June, and investors interpreted Chair [Jerome] Powell as more dovish than he had hoped at the last Federal Reserve meeting,” said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial. “But today’s market is tomorrow’s market—Wednesday’s inflation data will provide a clearer picture as to whether this bear market is truly behind us.”

According to Ms. Krosby, inflation is the No. 1 concern for the market, including not only whether it is subsiding, but how quickly.

Earnings season is winding down, though some major companies are still set to report figures. Roblox, Coinbase Global and Wynn Resorts will release results after markets close. Chip maker

Micron Technology

fell 4.7% Tuesday after issuing a revenue warning, just a day after

Nvidia

offered similar preliminary guidance.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings

fell 11% after reporting a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. Shares of peer cruise line

Carnival Corporation

fell 5.7% as the pockets of the travel sector struggle to recover from its pandemic lows.

Energy stocks gained 1.7% in the morning session, led by shares of Occidental Petroleum which advanced 4.4% on the back of news Monday that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway took its stake in the company past the 20% mark.

Traders worked on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.



Photo:

ANDREW KELLY/REUTERS

Brent crude prices flip-flopped in Tuesday trading, swinging 1.8% in either direction. Barrels of the crude benchmark lurched into positive territory early in the morning after Moscow cut the flow of oil through a pipeline to Europe, and last traded nearly flat at $96.62 per barrel.

“Oil prices are still driven by the near-term macroeconomic outlook,” said

Robert Thummel,

managing director and senior portfolio manager of TortoiseEcofin. “Concerns remain that the Federal Reserve will continue slowing the economy if Wednesday’s inflation data comes in higher than expected, but markets still see persistent undersupply and high demand as creating upward pressure on oil prices.

Data released Tuesday showed U.S. labor productivity declined for a second straight quarter while labor costs were more elevated than economists expected.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note edged up to 2.800% from 2.763% on Monday, while the two-year yield rose to 3.263% from 3.214%. With shorter-term yields significantly above longer-term ones, the yield curve remains inverted, a key recession indicator.

Overseas, the Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.7%, with losses led by travel and technology firms. In Asia, stock markets were mixed. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 0.9% while in China, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.3%. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index weakened by 0.2%.

Write to Will Horner at william.horner@wsj.com and Eric Wallerstein at eric.wallerstein@wsj.com

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Individual Investors Ramp Up Bets on Tech Stocks

Technology stocks have taken a beating this year. Many individual investors have used it as an opportunity to double down.

The Nasdaq Composite Index—home to the big tech stocks that propelled the market’s decadelong rally—has fallen 21% in 2022. Shares of

Amazon.com Inc.

AMZN 10.36%

and the parents of Google and

Facebook

META -1.01%

have suffered double-digit declines as well, stung by higher interest rates and souring attitudes about their growth prospects. 

Yet many of those stocks remain the most popular among individual investors who say they are confident in a rebound and expect the companies to continue powering the economy. 

In late July, purchases by individual investors of a basket of popular tech stocks hit the highest level since at least 2014, according to data from Vanda Research. The basket includes the FAANG stocks—Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon,

Apple Inc.

AAPL 3.28%

,

Netflix Inc.

and Google parent

Alphabet Inc.

GOOG 1.79%

—along with a handful of others like

Tesla Inc.

and

Microsoft Corp.

Meanwhile, Apple, chip company

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

and the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust exchange-traded fund have remained among the most popular individual bets since 2020. 

Interest in risky and leveraged funds tied to tech and stocks like

Nvidia Corp.

has also swelled, a sign that investors have stepped in to play the wild swings in the shares. 

It has been a fruitful bet for many. Tech stocks have been on the rebound of late, partly on investor hopes for a slower path of interest-rate increases in the months ahead. The Nasdaq gained 12% in July, its best month since April 2020, outperforming the broader S&P 500, which rose 9.1%.

Individual investor Jerry Lee says: ‘The market is severely undervaluing how much tech can actually play into our lives.’



Photo:

Peggy Chen

“I’m extremely bullish on tech,” said Jerry Lee, a 27-year-old investor in New York who co-founded a startup that helps people find jobs. “The market is severely undervaluing how much tech can actually play into our lives.” 

In coming days, investors will be parsing earnings reports from companies such as AMD and

PayPal Holdings Inc.

for more clues about the market’s trajectory. Data on manufacturing and the jobs market are also on tap. 

Mr. Lee said he recently stashed cash into a technology-focused fund that counts Apple and Nvidia among its biggest holdings, after years of pouring money into broad-based index funds. His experience working at firms such as Google has made him optimistic about the sector’s future, he said.

Gabe Fisher holds stock in Meta Platforms, Amazon and Alphabet.



Photo:

Ethan Kaplan

Even last week when many of the industry’s leaders, including Apple, Amazon and Alphabet, warned their growth is slowing, investors pushed the stocks higher and expressed confidence in the ability of the companies to withstand an uncertain economy. Apple logged its best month since August 2020, while Amazon finished its best month since October 2009, helped by a 10% jump in its shares on Friday alone.

Many investors also pounced on the tumble in shares of Facebook parent Meta Platforms. The stock was the top buy among individual investors on the Fidelity brokerage Thursday when it fell 5.2% in the wake of the social-media giant’s first-ever revenue drop. Tesla,

Ford Motor Co.

and leveraged exchange-traded funds tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index were also widely traded that day.

Gabe Fisher, a 23-year-old investor near San Francisco, said he is holding on to stocks like Meta, Amazon and Alphabet. 

“Even if these companies never grow at as fast of a pace, they’re still companies that are so relevant and so prevalent that I’m going to hold on to them,” Mr. Fisher said.

He said he also has a small position in

Cathie Wood’s

ARK Innovation Exchange-Traded Fund that he doesn’t plan to sell soon, even though the fund has lost more than half of its value this year. 

Other investors have been turning to riskier corners of the market. Leveraged exchange-traded funds tracking tech have been the third- and fourth-most-popular ETFs for individual investors to buy this year, behind funds tracking the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indexes. These funds allow investors to make turbocharged bets on the market and can double or triple the daily return of a stock or index.

Many individual investors have also turned to the options market to bet on tech. Bullish bets that would pay out if Tesla shares rose have been among the most widely traded in the options market, according to Vanda. Individual traders have spent more on Tesla call options on an average day this year than on Amazon, Nvidia and options tied to the Invesco QQQ Trust combined, according to Vanda. The firm analyzed the average premium spent on options that are out-of-the-money, or far from where the shares are currently trading. 

Jeff Durbin, a 59-year-old investor based in Naples, Fla., said he regrets missing out on buying big tech stocks decades ago.  

He has scooped up shares of companies like artificial intelligence firm

Upstart Holdings Inc.

and

Shopify Inc.

SHOP -3.01%

—and hung on despite their sharp swings. Shopify, for example, dropped 14% in a single session last week as it said it would cut about 10% of its global workforce. It’s painful, but I missed out on things like Amazon and Netflix when they were cheap,” Mr. Durbin said. “Who is going to be the Amazon and Apple 20 years from now?”

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Shopify Says It Will Lay Off 10% of Workers, Sending Shares Lower

Shopify Inc.

SHOP -14.06%

is cutting roughly 1,000 workers, or 10% of its global workforce, rolling back a bet on e-commerce growth the technology company made during the pandemic, according to an internal memo.

Tobi Lütke,

the company’s founder and chief executive, told staff in a memo sent Tuesday that the layoffs are necessary as consumers resume old shopping habits and pull back on the online orders that fueled the company’s recent growth. Shopify, which helps businesses set up e-commerce websites, has warned that it expects revenue growth to slow this year.

Shopify’s shares fell 14% to $31.55 on Tuesday after The Wall Street Journal first reported on the layoffs. The shares have fallen more than 80% since they peaked in November near $175 adjusting for a recent stock split. The company reports quarterly results on Wednesday.

Mr. Lütke said he had expected that surging e-commerce sales growth would last past the Covid-19 pandemic’s ebb. “It’s now clear that bet didn’t pay off,” said Mr. Lütke in the letter, which was reviewed by the Journal. “Ultimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I got this wrong.”

The Ottawa-based company will cut jobs in all its divisions, though most of the layoffs will occur in recruiting, support and sales units, said Mr. Lütke. “We’re also eliminating overspecialized and duplicate roles, as well as some groups that were convenient to have but too far removed from building products,” he wrote. Staff who are being let go will be notified on Tuesday.

Shopify’s job cuts are among the largest so far in a wave of layoffs and hiring freezes that is washing over technology companies. Rising interest rates, supply-chain shortages and the reversal of pandemic trends, including remote work and e-commerce shopping, have cooled what was once a red-hot tech sector.

Shopify’s job cuts are the first big layoffs the company has announced since Tobi Lütke founded it in 2006.



Photo:

Cate Dingley/Bloomberg News

Netflix Inc.

cut about 300 workers in June as it deals with a loss in subscribers.

Twitter Inc.,

now mired in a legal standoff with

Elon Musk,

laid off fewer than 100 members of its talent acquisition team. Mr. Musk’s own company, electric-vehicle maker

Tesla Inc.,

late in June laid off roughly 200 people, after announcing it would cut 10% of salaried staff.

Other firms, including

Microsoft Corp.

and

Alphabet Inc.’s

Google, said they would slow hiring the rest of the year.

Tuesday’s announcement is Mr. Lütke’s first big move after Shopify’s shareholders approved a board plan to protect his voting power. The job cuts are the first big layoffs the company has announced since Mr. Lütke started the company in 2006.

Shopify’s workforce has increased from 1,900 in 2016 to roughly 10,000 in 2021, according to the company’s filings. The hiring spree was made to help keep up with booming business. E-commerce shopping surged during the pandemic, and many small-business owners created online stores to sell goods and services.

Shopify reported annual revenue growth of 86% in 2020 and 57% in 2021 to about $4.6 billion. However, the company reported a softening this year, and warned that 2022’s numbers wouldn’t benefit from the pandemic trends.

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In his memo on Tuesday, Mr. Lütke said, “What we see now is the mix reverting to roughly where pre-Covid data would have suggested it should be at this point. Still growing steadily, but it wasn’t a meaningful 5-year leap ahead.”

Shopify has been expanding its business in recent years to provide more services for merchants. It has developed point-of-sale hardware for retailers, launched a shopping app for its merchants to list products and created a network of fulfillment centers to ship orders for its business partners.

In May, Shopify agreed to buy U.S. fulfillment specialist Deliverr Inc. for $2.1 billion in cash and stock. It announced partnerships with Twitter in June and with YouTube earlier this month, allowing users to buy items that Shopify merchants post on those platforms.

Shopify is offering 16 weeks of severance to the laid-off workers, plus one week for every year of service.

Write to Vipal Monga at vipal.monga@wsj.com

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U.S. Stocks Wobble After Three-Day Rally

U.S. stocks wobbled between small gains and losses Friday, trying to extend a three-day winning streak, as investors parsed earnings reports from Twitter and other companies.

The S&P 500 fell 0.1%, a day after the broad benchmark index jumped 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.2%, recently adding 60 points, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.6%.

A sharp drop in Snap shares weighed on shares of technology companies and added fuel to investor fears about the state of business growth. Snap lost 32% after posting its weakest quarterly sales growth as a public company. The  parent company of popular photo-sharing social-media app Snapchat said it would substantially reduce its rate of hiring.

Meanwhile, Twitter shares fell 1.2% after the company posted a loss and noted that revenue was hurt by uncertainty related to

Elon Musk’s

acquisition. 

Other megacap technology companies, including

Meta Platforms

and

Alphabet,

also pulled back, falling 6% and 3%, respectively. Meanwhile,

American Express

shares rose 3.8% after the company reported a 31% rise in revenue.

A look at the markets shows asset managers are moving money around in ways that suggest they see a recession coming. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains what to look for and why they tell us investors are increasingly pricing in a recession. Illustration: David Fang

Even with Friday’s wobbles, the S&P 500, the Dow and the Nasdaq are all on pace to end the week with solid gains, offering a respite to investors who have seen their portfolios pummeled this year. A stretch of earnings reports this week have given investors confidence to wade in and scoop up beaten-down stocks.

Netflix

and

Tesla

were among the companies that exceeded Wall Street expectations, sending their shares soaring to become two of the S&P 500’s best performers this week.

With a 3.5% rise for the week through Thursday, the S&P 500 is on pace to cap its best week in a month. Nonetheless, few investors are willing to call a bottom to a selloff that has dragged the S&P 500 down 16% this year. Persistently high inflation, the possibility of a recession and the war in Ukraine remain at the forefront of investors’ minds. Next week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve, as well as coming gross domestic product data, could inject more volatility in the markets. 

Some investors say they have jumped back into the market in recent weeks to take advantage of bargains, noting that extreme bearish sentiment is often a contrarian signal. BofA Global Research this week reported “max bearish” sentiment among investors in its Bull & Bear Indicator. 

“There’s lots of metrics that point to negativity on equities. That’s a good starting point for us and what has given us more confidence” to add to equity positions, said John Roe, head of multiasset funds at Legal & General Investment Management.

High inflation, the possibility of a recession and the war in Ukraine remain on investors’ minds.



Photo:

BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

Meantime, investors are maintaining a close eye on Europe, which has been beset by concerns about the cost of living and an energy crisis that could push economies into recession. On Friday, fresh business surveys suggested that the eurozone economy contracted in July. Excluding pandemic lockdown months, this would mark the first contraction signaled by purchasing managers’ indexes since 2013.

Still, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.5%. Shares of

Uniper

fell around 20% following the news that Germany would take a 30% stake in the company and provide a bailout deal after it was hit hard by dwindling supplies of Russian gas. 

Traders remain focused on the flow of Russian natural gas through the critical Nord Stream pipeline, as well as the ripple effects from the resignation of Italian Prime Minister

Mario Draghi.

Italy’s benchmark FTSE MIB stock index rose 0.7%. Brent crude fell 0.6% to $98.87 a barrel Friday. 

The euro retreated 0.4% against the dollar to $1.0185, raising the possibility that Europe’s common currency could reach parity again. 

In bond markets, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell to 2.795%, down from 2.908% Thursday. Yields fall when bond prices rise. 

In Asia, trading was fairly flat. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.2%, while China’s Shanghai Composite lost 0.1%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.4%.

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Stocks Open Higher as Banks Give Updates

U.S. stocks rose in early Monday trading as investors considered another set of earnings reports from major companies and looked ahead to a week of key central-bank meetings.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.9% after the broad index on Friday ended higher, snapping a five-day losing streak. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7% while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index gained 1.4%.

Big financial firms kicked off a bumper week of earnings reports Monday.

Bank of America

rose 2.4% after it said second-quarter profits declined 32%.

Goldman Sachs

advanced 5.3% after reporting better-than-expected earnings.

Synchrony Financial

rose 3.9% after reporting earnings per share that fell year-over-year but were better than analysts had expected.

Charles Schwab

gained less than 1% after reporting second-quarter profits rose by 42%, also beating Wall Street expectations.

IBM

will report later in the day. Companies due to provide updates later this week include

Johnson & Johnson

on Tuesday,

Tesla

on Wednesday and

Twitter

on Friday.

Investors are trying to reconcile a dire economic outlook with earnings forecasts that remain relatively positive. Economic growth is showing signs of slowing while inflation is soaring, last week reaching a fresh four-decade high. Meanwhile, central banks are raising interest rates rapidly, adding another cloud on the economy’s horizon. So far, corporate reports have been lackluster.

“It feels like something is wrong: Either the economic story is wrong or analysts are being too optimistic on earnings, and it feels like the latter,” said Altaf Kassam, head of investment strategy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at State Street Global Advisors. “If you scrape the text of company earnings announcements, many are complaining.”

WSJ’s Dion Rabouin breaks down how inflation rises and why the Federal Reserve, Congress, the president and large corporations can all be held accountable. Illustration: Ryan Trefes

Data due Monday were expected to show declining confidence among U.S. home builders as mortgage rates are rising. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect the National Association of Home Builders to report a seventh consecutive month of declining confidence in July. 

The European Central Bank is expected to raise interest rates for the first time in 11 years at a meeting Thursday. The region’s economy is feeling the effects of the war in Ukraine and an energy crisis more acutely than other economies. The Bank of Japan is expected to buck the trend among global central banks and keep rates unchanged on Thursday. 

The Federal Reserve has signaled it will raise interest rates by 0.75 percentage point for the second time in a row later this month.

Commodity prices rebounded following a stretch of weakness. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose 3.8% to $105.03 a barrel. Copper prices in London rose 2.6% to $7,362 a metric ton. Gold prices rose 0.6%.

In bond markets, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose to 2.978% from 2.929% on Friday. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

Traders worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange last week.



Photo:

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Overseas, global markets were higher across the board. In Europe, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 rose 1.1%. Oil-and-gas and mining stocks led the gains as commodity prices rose, while banks also rose. Commodity trader and miner

Glencore

rose 2.5% while oil major

Shell

gained 2.6%. Germany’s

Commerzbank

and

Deutsche Bank

each rose around 4%.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index jumped 2.7% while in mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.6%. Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.

—Pia Singh contributed to this article.

Write to Will Horner at william.horner@wsj.com

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Stocks Open Mixed, Oil Falls on Growth Concerns

U.S. stock indexes were mixed shortly after the opening bell, continuing a volatile stretch for global markets.

The S&P 500 slid 0.3% Tuesday, a day after the benchmark stocks gauge skidded  1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6%.

Oil prices and bond yields fell, dragged lower by worries that major economies are headed toward a recession. Brent-crude futures, the benchmark in international energy markets, fell 4.9% to $102.26 a barrel a barrel.

In the bond market, the yield on 10-year Treasurys slipped to 2.906% from 2.990% Monday. Yields, which move inversely to prices, have drifted lower since late June on expectations that an economic slowdown would prod the Federal Reserve to pull interest rates back down in 2023.

For now, though, the Fed is intent on pushing rates up in an attempt to tame decades-high inflation. Investors say that campaign, coupled with signs that the U.S. economy is losing momentum, could spell more pain for markets after a rough first half of the year. Adding to the challenges for money managers are China’s struggle to contain Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine.

“There is going to be a recession, but we’re not there yet,” said Philip Saunders, co-head of multiasset growth at

Ninety One,

an asset manager based in the U.K. and South Africa. “The key thing that is going on is that financial liquidity is retracting.”

A look at the markets shows asset managers are moving money around in ways that suggest they see a recession coming. WSJ’s Dion Rabouin explains what to look for and why they tell us investors are increasingly pricing in a recession. Illustration: David Fang

Meanwhile, data from the National Federation of Independent Business showed confidence among small-business owners fell to its lowest level in almost a decade in June.

Among individual stocks,

PepsiCo

rose 0.1% after the drinks company said second-quarter profits and revenue beat analysts’ forecasts.

Earnings season among major U.S. companies will pick up speed later in the week with results due from major financial institutions. Investors will pay particular attention to comments by bank executives on the trajectory of the economy, and to the effects of higher input costs on profit margins.

Elsewhere in commodities, copper forwards on the London Metal Exchange fell 2.6% to just over $7,400 a metric ton. The industrial metal, a barometer for the world economy because of its use in construction and heavy industry, has slumped by over a fifth over the past month and is more than 30% below the all-time high of over $10,000 a metric ton recorded in March.

One factor that has weighed on commodities in recent weeks has been a stronger dollar. The greenback’s rally stalled Tuesday, pushing the WSJ Dollar Index down 0.1%. On Monday it rose 1.1%, lifting the dollar to its highest level against a basket of other currencies since 2002.

Traders worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.



Photo:

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

International stocks retreated. The Stoxx Europe 600 lost 0.1%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index lost 1%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.3% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.8%.

-Gunjan Banerji contributed to this article.

Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com.

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U.S. Stocks Dip as Jobs Growth Remains Strong

U.S. stocks lost ground after the monthly jobs report beat expectations, heading toward strong weekly gains.

The S&P 500 was down 0.3% in recent trading, a day after the benchmark index jumped 1.5% to log a fourth consecutive gain, its longest winning streak since March. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.1%. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite lost 0.5%.  

The June jobs report showed that rising interest rates and high inflation are so far not affecting hiring, which remains strong. The U.S. economy added 372,000 jobs in June, well above the 250,000 expected by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

Some analysts said that the strong jobs report increased chances that the Fed would proceed with a 0.75-percentage-point increase at its next meeting. The Fed in June raised interest rates by that much, marking its largest interest-rate increase since 1994.

“It gives the Fed a little bit more confidence that it can move aggressively without severely hurting the labor market,” said

Mona Mahajan,

senior investment strategist at Edward Jones. 

However, Ms. Mahajan said that historically, such aggressive interest-rate hikes eventually dent the economy.

“At some point they will hit the real economy,” she said.

For the most part, investors have lately gotten a respite from the heavy selling across markets that has dominated for much of the year. The S&P 500 has risen 1.7% this week, while the Dow has added about 0.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has jumped 3.9%.

Throughout the week, many investors returned to a familiar trade: Buying shares of tech companies. The S&P 500’s technology and communication services groups have been among the biggest winners. The

ARK Innovation ETF

has soared almost 16% this week.

Some weak economic figures in recent weeks have led investors to question how aggressively the Fed will raise interest rates to fight inflation down the road. Lately, data have shown a drop in activity in industries ranging from manufacturing to home construction, accelerating worries among traders that the economy is headed for a recession. 

Of course, the latest jobs figures show that the labor market remains strong, providing solace to some investors that fears of a recession may be overblown and yet another conflicting signal about the path of the economy.

This week, U.S. central bankers reaffirmed their commitment to fighting inflation, first in minutes from the Fed’s June meeting, and then again on Thursday when two Fed officials signaled support for another 0.75-percentage-point interest-rate increase later this month. Both also indicated that recession fears may be overblown. 

“I think there has been this relief that central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve, will get a handle on inflation,” said

Susannah Streeter,

senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Amid a record hiring streak in the U.S., economists are watching for signs of a possible wave turn. WSJ’s Anna Hirtenstein looks at how rising interest rates, high inflation, market selloffs and recession risks challenge the growth of America’s workforce. Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP

In corporate news,

Twitter

fell 3.9% after it said Thursday it would lay off 30% of its talent-acquisition team.

GameStop

sank 3.4% after the retailer also said it was cutting staff and terminated its finance chief.

U.S. stocks on Thursday posted their fourth consecutive session of gains.



Photo:

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News

Still, many expect the release of inflation data and the start of second-quarter earnings season next week to bring more choppiness.

Fears of a recession on the horizon have rippled through stock, bond and metals markets lately. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal have dramatically raised the probability of a recession recently and the prospect of one has sent copper prices sharply lower while spurring a rare inversion in the bond market.

A closely watched recession predictor, the yield curve, remained inverted Friday, with the yield on two-year government bonds trading higher than the 10-year equivalent. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose after the monthly jobs report to trade at 3.095%, up from 3.007% Thursday. 

The yield on two-year government bonds traded at 3.113%, up from 3.039% in the previous session. Yields fall when bond prices rise. 

Elsewhere in markets, Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, ticked up. Earlier this week, oil prices plunged. Brent most recently gained 0.3% to $104.88 a barrel.

The dollar climbed, with The WSJ Dollar Index, which measures the greenback against a basket of 16 currencies, up 0.2%. The euro fell 0.2% to trade around $1.0147, putting the common currency within striking distance of parity, or equal value with the dollar.

Overseas, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 edged up 0.5%, finishing the week up 2.5%. In Asia, trading was mixed. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.4%, while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.2%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 finished up 0.1%, paring earlier gains following news that former Prime Minister

Shinzo Abe

was shot during a speech. Mr. Abe later died.

Write to Caitlin McCabe at caitlin.mccabe@wsj.com and Gunjan Banerji at gunjan.banerji@wsj.com

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