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Stock futures take a major tumble – Goldman Sachs predicts 2008-like housing crash in 4 US cities – America’s largest employer raises starting wages – DOJ calls for breakup as it sues Google over its online ad dominance
Stock futures were taking a major tumble early on Wednesday as Dow Jones Industrial futures fell 227 points or -0.67%, while the S&P 500 fell by 34 points or -0.84%, and NASDAQ futures fell by 154.75 points or -1.30%, Yahoo Finance reported.
Microsoft fell 2.67% in premarket trading after the company issued a weak earnings outlook for the last quarter which showed its cloud business slowing. Amazon declined 3% in premarket trading.
Reports are pending for Wednesday on Tesla, Boeing, IBM, and AT&T, Yahoo and CNBC reported.
The benchmark U.S. 10-Year Treasury was down -0.031% to yield at 3.436% as of 8:35 AM EST.
In oil futures, WTI crude was up +0.11% and trading at $80.22 a barrel, while Brent crude futures were up +0.02% at $86.15 a barrel as of 8:37 AM CT.
Goldman Sachs is predicting that skyrocketing interest rates will lead to declining housing prices through 2023, and specifically predicted in a letter to clients earlier this month that four US cities will suffer catastrophic dips in housing prices comparable to the 2008 housing crisis, FOXBusiness reported.
Goldman Sachs sees decreases of over 25 percent in housing values for Austin, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; San Diego, California; and San Jose, California. During the 2008 Great Recession, home prices around the US fell around 27 percent at the time, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index.
Walmart, the largest private employer in the United States, announced on Tuesday that it will raise its minimum wage from $12 to $14 an hour. The move by Walmart is viewed as potentially having a ripple effect across lower-wage industries, as Walmart and other companies compete for workers to fill entry-level positions. Walmart employs roughly 1.7 million workers in the US. 94% of those are hourly workers, CNN reports. Walmart’s rivals Amazon and Target have a $15 minimum wage, while Costco starts at $17 an hour.
The Justice Department and eight US states sued Google on Tuesday over its dominance in the online advertising market, accusing the company of harming competition. They are now calling for it to be broken up, CNN reported. The DOJ was joined by California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia in the lawsuit.
Google has been criticized for years for not only having a monopoly on online advertising but that it has exploited its power in anticompetitive ways. Others have claimed the company also has a conflict of interest between its advertising and search tools.
