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Dow falls nearly 500 points after strong data, bearish comments by David Tepper

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U.S. stocks traded lower on Thursday, erasing most of their gains from their biggest rally in three weeks after a round of upbeat economic data and a warning from hedge-fund titan David Tepper that he was “leaning short” against both stocks and bonds on expectations the Federal Reserve and other central banks will continue tightening into 2023.

Positive economic news can be a negative for stocks by underlining expectations that monetary policy makers will remain aggressive in their efforts to quash inflation.

What’s happening
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    -1.51%
    fell 472 points, or 1.4%, to 32,903.
  • The S&P 500
    SPX,
    -1.99%
    shed 71 points, or 1.8%, to 3,807.
  • The Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    -2.84%
    fell 272 points, or 2.5%, to 10,437.

A day earlier, all three major indexes recorded their best gain in three weeks as the Dow advanced 526.74 points.

What’s driving markets

Investors saw another raft of strong economic data Thursday morning, including a revised reading on third-quarter gross domestic product which showed the U.S. economy expanded more quickly than previously believed. Growth was revised up to 3.2%, up from 2.9% from the previous revision released last month.

See: Economy grew at 3.2% rate in third quarter thanks to strong consumer spending

The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits in the week before Christmas rose slightly to 216,000, but new filings remained low and signaled the labor market is still quite strong. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast new claims would total 220,000 in the seven days ending Dec 17.

“Jobless claims ticking slightly up but coming in below expectations could be a sign that the Fed’s wish of a slowing labor market will have to wait until 2023. While weekly jobless claims aren’t the best indicator of the overall labor market, they have remained in a robust range these last two months suggesting the labor market remains strong and has withstood the Fed’s tightening, at least for the time being,” said Mike Loewengart, head of model portfolio construction at Morgan Stanley Global Investment Office, in emailed comments.

“While weekly jobless claims aren’t the best indicator of the overall labor market, they have remained in a robust range these last two months suggesting the labor market remains strong and has withstood the Fed’s tightening, at least for the time being,” he wrote. “It’s no surprise to see the market take a breather today after yesterday’s rally as investors parse through earnings data, and despite some beats this week, expectations that earnings will remain as resilient in 2023 may be overblown.”

Stocks were feeling pressure after Appaloosa Management’s Tepper shared a cautious outlook for markets based on the expectation that central bankers around the world will continue hiking interest rates.

“I would probably say I’m leaning short on the equity markets right now because the upside-downside doesn’t make sense to me when I have so many people, so many central banks, telling me what they are going to do, what they want to do, what they expect to do,” Tepper said in a CNBC interview.

Key Words: Billionaire investor David Tepper would ‘lean short’ on stock market because central banks are saying ‘what they’re going to do’

A day earlier, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence survey came in at an eight-month high, which helped stoke a rally in stocks initially spurred by strong earnings from Nike Inc. and FedEx Corp. released Tuesday evening. This optimistic outlook helped stocks clinch their best daily performance in three weeks.

Volumes are starting to dry up as the year winds down, making markets more susceptible to bigger moves. According to Dow Jones Market Data, Wednesday saw the least combined volume on major exchanges since Nov. 29.

Read: Is the stock market open on Monday after Christmas Day?

In other economic data news, the U.S. leading index fell a sharp 1% in November, suggesting that the U.S. economy is heading toward a downturn.

Many market strategists are positioned defensively as they expect stocks could tumble to fresh lows in the new year.

See: Wall Street’s stock-market forecasts for 2022 were off by the widest margin since 2008: Will next year be any different?

Katie Stockton, a technical strategist at Fairlead Strategies, warned clients in a Thursday note that they should brace for more downside ahead.

“We expect the major indices to remain firm next week, helped by oversold conditions, but would brace for more downside in January given the recent downturn,” Stockton said.

Others said the latest data and comments from Tepper have simply refocused investors on the fact that the Fed, European Central Bank and now the Bank of Japan are preparing to continue tightening monetary policy.

“Yesterday was the short covering rally, but the bottom line is the trend is still short and we’re still fighting the Fed,” said Eric Diton, president and managing director of the Wealth Alliance.

Single-stock movers
  • AMC Entertainment Holdings 
    AMC,
    -14.91%
    was down sharply after the movie theater operator announced a $110 million equity capital raise.
  • Tesla Inc. 
    TSLA,
    -8.18%
    shares continued to tumble as the company has been one of the worst performers on the S&P 500 this year.
  • Shares of Verizon Communications Inc. 
    VZ,
    -0.53%
    were down again on Thursday as the company heads for its worst year on record.
  • Shares of CarMax Inc. 
    KMX,
    -6.60%
    tumbled after the used vehicle seller reported fiscal third-quarter profit and sales that dropped well below expectations.
  • Chipmakers and suppliers of equipment and materials, including Nvidia Corp.
    NVDA,
    -8.60%,
    Advanced Micro Devices 
    AMD,
    -7.17%
    and Applied Materials Inc.
    AMAT,
    -8.54%,
    were lower on Thursday.

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Business

Why is the stock market falling? Dow drops nearly 900 points as investors weigh Fed’s policy path, earnings

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U.S. stocks fell sharply Friday, as investors continued to weigh hawkish comments on interest rates by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell a day earlier, as well as a fresh batch of corporate earnings that largely disappointed.

How are stocks trading?
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    -2.18%
    was down 879 points, or 2.5%, at 33,914.
  • The S&P 500
    SPX,
    -2.18%
    fell 107 points, or 2.4%, to 4,286, and was on track for a third straight weekly fall.
  • The Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    -2.03%
    shed 298 points, or 2.3%, to trade at 12,875.

On Thursday, the Dow shed 368.03 points, or 1.1%, reversing a gain of as much as 331.43 points in intraday trading. The more-than 700-point intraday swing was its biggest since March 8, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The S&P 500 fell 1.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite slumped 2.1%.

What’s driving the market?

Stock-market weakness picked up Friday where Thursday’s selloff left off, when equities tumbled into the afternoon after Powell added his support for moving faster on raising interest rates to cool inflation, measures that would include a possible 50 basis point interest rate hike in May.

“It would seem investors have been too complacent about the upcoming [Fed] meeting, which will need to change,” said Michael Kramer, founder of Mott Capital, in a note.

The Cboe Volatility Index
VIX,
+20.55%,
an options-based measure of expected volatility over the next 30 days, had been too low heading into the May 3-4 Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, meeting, Kramer said. It rose Thursday and was up another 19.5% at 27.1- on Friday, moving above its long-term average just below 20.

Powell’s remarks appeared to make a half percentage point rate hike the base case, with the central bank also likely to announce the beginning of the unwinding of its balance sheet, Kramer said.

Meanwhile, traders of fed funds futures have priced in a 94% chance that the Federal Reserve will deliver a 75 basis point rate hike in June, up from 70% on Thursday and 28% a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. 

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield 
TMUBMUSD10Y,
2.895%,
meanwhile, pulled back slightly to around 2.89% after climbing about 8.1 basis points to 2.917% on Thursday, the highest since Dec. 4, 2018.

Read: How to invest as inflation, higher interest rates and war roil markets

And some are warning that the Nasdaq is looking particularly vulnerable. The week has delivered some big earnings news for the technology sector, with investors cheering Thursday’s results from Tesla
TSLA,
-0.12%,
on the heels of deeply disappointing Netflix
NFLX,
-0.91%
results.

The Fed’s hawkish shift and the relentless rise in Treasury yields may be sapping the previous appeal of equities, which had previously been seen as the only viable avenue for many return-seeking investors.

“Investors appear to be moving away from the TINA (There is no Alternative) narrative as of late when it comes to equities,” said Brian Price, head of investment management at Commonwealth Financial Network, in a note. “This is the second straight week of significant outflows from equity mutual funds and days like today are unlikely to change the sentiment moving forward. The one positive takeaway may be that sentiment has become too bearish and we could see a countertrend rally at some point in the coming weeks.”

In One Chart: Investors just pulled a massive $17.5 billion out of global equities. They’re just getting started, says Bank of America.

All 11 major S&P 500 sectors fell Friday, with healthcare stocks dropping the most after a downbeat profit forecast from HCA Healthcare Inc.
HCA,
-20.47%
sent its shares tumbling. Other hospital operators, including Tenet Healthcare Corp.
THC,
-13.49%,
Community Health Systems Inc.
CYH,
-17.36%
and Universal Health Services
UHS,
-12.70%
also fell between 10.4% and 13.2%.

However, of the 99 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings for the first quarter, 77.8% of them have beat market expectations. Typically, 66% of companies beat estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

Next week will mark another big week for earnings, with 558 companies reporting, Saxo noted. “It is the big test of companies’ ability to pass on costs to their customers,” they said.

Investors may also be skittish ahead of the final round of France’s presidential election on Sunday. An upset victory by far-right candidate Marine Le Pen over incumbent Francois Macron would likely spark market volatility, analysts said.

See: Here’s how markets are positioned for Sunday’s presidential election in France between Macron and Le Pen

What companies are in focus?
  • HCA shares were down 19.6%, on pace for their largest percentage decrease since March 16, 2020, when they fell 19.02%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
  • Gap Inc.
    GPS,
    -18.51%
    stock tumbled nearly 19%, following a bigger-than-expected drop in sales and as the retailer announced the depature of Old Navy CEO Nancy Green.
  • Shares of Qualtrics International Inc.
    XM,
    -9.41%
    fell 9.5% after the experience-management software company reported fiscal first-quarter forecast-beating revenue.
  • Snap Inc.
    SNAP,
    -0.27%
    shares lost 0.7% after the social media group reported quarterly revenue that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
  • Shares of American Express Co.
    AXP,
    -1.87%
    fell 1.4% after topping earnings expectations Friday amid a continued rebound in travel and strong spending trends among younger consumers.
  • Verizon Communications Inc.
    VZ,
    -5.30%
    fell after its earnings report showed a net loss of postpaid phone subscribers in its latest quarter, calling out “competitive dynamics within the industry,” though it said it had its best quarter of broadband net additions in more than a decade.
How are other assets trading?
  • The ICE U.S. Dollar Index 
    DXY,
    +0.56%
     rose 0.7% to trade at its highest since March 2020.
  • Bitcoin 
    BTCUSD,
    -2.51%
    fell 2.4% to trade near $39,500.
  • The U.S. oil benchmark
    CL.1,
    -1.90%
     fell $1.72, or 1.7%, to settle at $102.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, falling 4.1% for the week.
  • Gold
    GC00,
    -0.60%
    fell $13.90, or 0.7%, to settle at $1,934.30 an ounce, leaving a 2.1% weekly fall.
  • The Stoxx Europe 600
    SXXP,
    -1.79%
    dropped 1.5% while London’s FTSE 100 
    UKX,
    -1.39%
    fell 1.4%.
  • The Shanghai Composite 
    SHCOMP,
    +0.23%
     rose 0.2%, while the Hang Seng Index 
    HSI,
    -0.21%
    slipped 0.2% in Hong Kong and Japan’s Nikkei 225 
    NIK,
    -1.63%
    fell 1%.

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Business

AT&T, Verizon Refuse FAA Request to Delay 5G Launch

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AT&T Inc.

T -0.73%

and

Verizon Communications Inc.

VZ -0.56%

rebuffed a request from federal transportation officials to delay the launch of new 5G wireless services but offered a counterproposal that would allow limited deployments to move forward this week.

The cellphone carriers said Sunday in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that they could further dim the power of their new 5G service for six months to match limits imposed by regulators in France, giving U.S. authorities more time to study more powerful signals’ effect on air traffic. The plan from the companies, which have said they plan to start service Wednesday, could prolong a standoff between the telecom and aviation industries over how to proceed.

“If U.S. airlines are permitted to operate flights every day in France, then the same operating conditions should allow them to do so in the United States,” the chief executives wrote in the letter.

Telecom-industry officials have pointed to dozens of countries, including France, that have already allowed cellular service over the frequencies in question, known as C-band. France is among the countries that have imposed wireless limits near airports while regulators study their effect on aircraft.

The message from AT&T CEO

John Stankey

and Verizon CEO

Hans Vestberg

was in response to a letter Transportation Secretary

Pete Buttigieg

and Federal Aviation Administration chief

Steve Dickson

sent late Friday. The New Year’s Eve missive asked the carriers to postpone their planned 5G launch by “no more than two weeks” while officials worked to address the wireless services’ effect on specific airports on a rolling basis over the coming weeks.

The FAA said it was reviewing the wireless companies’ letter. “U.S. aviation safety standards will guide our next actions,” the FAA said. Representatives from the Transportation Department, the FAA’s parent agency, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

Air-safety regulators have said the new cellular services could confuse key cockpit safety systems and have been preparing to impose potentially disruptive flight restrictions.

AT&T and Verizon disputed claims of any air-safety risk, though the companies already postponed a planned December debut of the new signals to provide more time for telecom and aviation regulators to share information about the wireless infrastructure and aircraft equipment in question.

The Sunday letter from telecom CEOs said transportation regulators’ latest delay request would be to “the detriment of millions of our consumer, business and government customers,” noting that carriers spent more than $80 billion to acquire the licenses in a Federal Communications Commission auction that closed in January 2021.

FCC authorities padded the spectrum they auctioned with a swath of buffer frequencies to prevent interference with cockpit systems. But air-safety regulators have expressed concern that more sensitive altimeters that pick up signals well beyond their defined range could mistake cellular transmissions for terrain. The devices feed data to commonly used cockpit systems that help planes automatically land in bad weather, prevent crashes and avoid midair collisions.

AT&T and Verizon have spent the past year preparing to turn on new signals to provide new fifth-generation wireless technology, a faster and more capable mobile service. Wireless companies in other countries already use similar frequencies, but the spectrum wasn’t available to U.S. providers until recently because of existing satellite users that had to be moved into a narrower band of spectrum before 5G service could begin.

Without a resolution to the aviation-telecom dispute, Messrs. Buttigieg and Dickson warned the FAA’s flight limits would bring severe economic consequences.

“Failure to reach a solution by Jan. 5 will force the U.S. aviation sector to take steps to protect the safety of the traveling public, particularly during periods of low visibility or inclement weather,” they wrote in their Dec. 31 letter.

Airlines have been bracing for significant flight cancellations and diversions due to potential FAA flight restrictions because of the regulator’s aviation-safety concerns. Pilots and airlines had been awaiting details of potential FAA flight restrictions that limit the use of systems that rely on radar altimeters. Aviation industry officials have most recently expected the agency to detail flight limits as soon as Monday.

Over the past week, U.S. air travel has been snarled by a mix of winter storms and staffing challenges because of increasing ranks of airline crews calling in sick with Covid-19 as the U.S. deals with a surge by the Omicron variant. Thousands of flights have been canceled and delayed.

5G and Air Traffic

More WSJ coverage on the debate over wireless frequencies and aviation, selected by the editors.

Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com

Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Business

Stock Market Today: Alibaba Gains, Novavax Drops, and the Dow Rises

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Text size

Macro concerns such as supply-chain issues appear to be on the back burner amid earnings season.


Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

The stock market was higher Wednesday, as investors weighed the prospect of strong corporate earnings against broader concerns over the economy.

In midday trading, the


Dow Jones Industrial Average
added 160 points, or 0.5%, while the


S&P 500
—which marked its fifth consecutive session of gains Tuesday—rose 0.4%. The


Nasdaq Composite
was up 0.2%.

Earnings season continued apace Wednesday, with


Abbott Laboratories

(ticker: ABT),


Verizon

(VZ),


Biogen

reporting Wednesday morning—they all beat—following


Netflix

(NFLX) and


United Airlines

(UAL) results Tuesday evening. One thing that stands out: With 16% of S&P 500 market cap having reported, results are nowhere near as good as bank earnings suggested last week, according to Credit Suisse strategist Jonathan Golub. While earnings have topped estimates by 14.1% overall, financials have topped forecasts by 21.6%, while everyone else has surpassed expectations by just 6.3%. It’s something to keep an eye on as earnings season progresses.

Wider concerns around familiar themes—such as inflation, central bank stimulus, and supply-chain disruptions—appear to have been allayed for now, as profit margins continue to hold up.

“Whilst inflation concerns are still very much bubbling under the surface of markets, risk appetite strengthened further yesterday thanks in no small part to decent earnings reports,” said Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank. “There are no signs of widespread erosion of margins at the moment. Perhaps there is so much money sloshing about that for now prices are broadly being passed on.”

Still, bond yields now sit above 1.6% after trading over 1.65% on Tuesday, and that could pressure stocks. Higher bond yields typically weigh on technology companies in particular, because they tend to discount the present value of future cash flows, and the valuations of many tech companies are grounded in profits expected years in the future.


Tesla

(TSLA) and


IBM

(IBM) are among the companies releasing financial results in the day ahead.

Meanwhile,


Bitcoin
prices touched an all-time high above $66,000. The leading cryptocurrency has been buoyed by the launch of the first exchange-traded fund tracking regulated Bitcoin futures—a landmark moment for the crypto industry. 

Trading in the ProShares


Bitcoin Strategy ETF
(BITO) began Tuesday and most of the substantial volume was driven by high-frequency traders and retail investors, according to analyst Jeffrey Halley of broker Oanda.

“Although a regulated ETF based on regulated futures does fit nicely into the mandates of many in the institutional space, I suspect they may wait a while before dipping their toes in the water,” Halley said.

Here are eight stocks on the move Wednesday:


Novavax

(NVAX) dropped 11% following a report alleging that manufacturing problems jeopardize billions of Covid-19 vaccine doses set to be delivered to low- and middle-income countries.

Verizon gained 2.6% after the company reported better-than-expected earnings.

Netflix stock fell 1.2% despite reporting better-than-expected earnings after Tuesday’s close. The stock was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.


Alibaba

(BABA) stock rose 0.5% one day after gaining 6.1% on reports that it would make its own chips and that Jack Ma would be traveling to Europe.

The U.S.-listed shares of Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer


ASML

(ASML) fell 4.3% after the company outlined revenue guidance for the next quarter below Wall Street’s estimates.


Nestlé

(NESN.Switzerland) rose 3.3% in Zurich, as the food and drinks giant raised its full-year sales outlook after posting revenue ahead of analyst expectations—citing strong retail spending.


Deliveroo

(ROO.U.K.) rose 3.2% in London, as the food delivery company upgraded its full-year forecast after reporting strong order growth in the third quarter.


Kering

(KER.France) fell 4% in Paris, as the luxury-goods group, which owns brands including Gucci, saw sales growth held back in the crucial Asian-Pacific region by rising Covid-19 cases over the summer. But the company as a whole posted sales ahead of expectations.

Write to editors@barrons.com

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Business

AT&T Books $15.5 Billion Charge on DirecTV Unit

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AT&T Inc. booked a $15.5 billion charge on its pay-television business, reflecting the damage cord-cutting has taken on its DirecTV satellite unit even as the company’s HBO Max streaming service’s growth ramped up.

The write-down created a fourth-quarter loss as the media-and-telecommunications giant weighs the potential sale of its pay-TV assets and executives focus their investments on newer technologies. The company reported quarterly revenue declines in its legacy-video and WarnerMedia units, offsetting gains in its core wireless-phone division.

Executives called the noncash accounting charge a sign of the pay-TV unit’s aging status as the Dallas company promotes an internet-streaming model that gives its content-production business a direct line to viewers.

“Our biggest and single-most important bet is HBO Max,” Chief Executive John Stankey said on a conference call Wednesday. Executives plan to expand the service’s footprint in other countries this year and launch an advertising-supported version in the second quarter.

Overall, AT&T reported a fourth-quarter loss of $13.89 billion, or $1.95 a share, compared with a profit of $2.39 billion, or 33 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 2.4% to $45.7 billion.

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