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Stocks rise slightly – Crypto rallies – Cramer warns against panic-selling reliable stocks – Big layoffs at Amazon and Microsoft – Mortgage demand jumps 28% in a week
Stock futures moved upward on Wednesday, although with limited momentum. S&P 500 futures were up +0.21%, while Dow futures rose slightly at +0.05%, and NASDAQ futures advanced +0.33%, Yahoo Finance reported.
Modernity shares soared 6.7% on the results from the effectiveness of its vaccine against RSV, while United Airlines rose 2.5% after reporting a better-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter of 2022.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was down -0.101 for a yield of 3.43% as of 8:59 AM EST.
In oil futures, WTI crude was up +1.60 percent at $81.46 a barrel, while Brent crude was up +1.30 percent at $87.04 a barrel.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer is warning investors not to panic-sell their reliable, traditional stocks after the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 fell on Tuesday on the back of weaker-than-expected bank earnings, which ended a four-day winning streak, CNBC reported.
“It is so easy to panic out of stocks on the first sign of weakness,” Cramer said. “I’m urging the opposite.”
Cryptocurrencies are on a rally, with Bitcoin at $21,411 and other digital coins riding on the wave. Bitcoin has risen 114% over the last seven days, cointelegraph reported. Ethereum is at $1595, while momentum pushed Shiba Inu up over 20% and DOGE up nearly 6% in the last 24 hours, coindesk reported. Although trading volume has returned, so has volatility.
Amazon has begun its biggest layoff ever, as earlier this month, the online giant announced in a blog post it was laying off about 18,000 people. Although the layoffs are the largest in its history, they will mostly apply to the company’s Amazon Stores division, and the amount represents only a fraction of its 1.5 million global workforce, FOXBusiness reported. Amazon stock was down -2.11%
Microsoft is also set to announce big layoffs, according to multiple reports that say the company could announce thousands of job cuts on Wednesday, CNN business reported. Without naming sources, Sky News reported the layoffs and said they would affect roughly 5 percent of Microsoft’s workforce. The company plans to cut jobs in a number of engineering divisions, according to Bloomberg. Microsoft employs 122,000 people in the US and some 221,000 people around the world.
Applications for mortgages jumped nearly 28% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index, CNBC reported. The increase is being attributed to a reduction in interest rates, with the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage decreasing to 6.23% from 6.42%, with points falling to 0.67 from 0.73 for loans with a 20% down payment. Interest rates on mortgages hit a recent high of around 7.2% at the end of October and into the year at 6.58%. One year ago, the average rate was 3.64%.
