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Stocks edge higher, Oil and Treasuries rise, Gold facing worst month in 2 years, Target reveals shifting consumer spending, Tesla stock up and Elon Musk richest person in the world again, Warren Buffett blasts “one of the shames of capitalism”
Stocks edge tire after Tuesday’s opening, on the last day of what was a volatile February on Wall Street, Yahoo Finance reported. S&P 500 futures were up 12.75 points or +0.32%, while Dow Jones industrial average futures climbed 96 points or +0.29%, and NASDAQ futures advanced 41.5 points or +0.34%.
Zoom Video rallied 6.9% in premarket trading. Advance Auto Parts gained 4.4%. Dish Network shares fell almost 5% as did Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings. Dick’s Sporting Goods slid 2.6%.
The benchmark US 10-Year Treasury advanced +0.021 to yield 3.943%, while the 2-Year Treasury notched up +0.01 percent, yielding 4.803% as of 8:52 AM EST.
Oil futures climbed, as WTI crude moved up +2.42%, trading at $77.51, while Brent crude advanced +1.77% to trade at $83.91 as of 8:50 AM ET.
Target revealed fourth-quarter earnings, with same-store sales increasing by 0.7%. However, the company’s CEO issued a cautious tone, noting that shoppers spent more on essentials such as food and beverages while spending less on discretionary categories such as electronics, home, and apparel, Yahoo Finance reported. Target shares jumped by more than 3.5% in premarket trading.
Dread of interest rate hikes is pushing gold prices down, as prices moved toward their biggest monthly loss in nearly two years since June 2021, after hitting a two-month low on Monday, CNBC reported. As of 8:39 AM ET, spot Gold was down -9.20 or -0.50% and trading at $1815.70.
Tesla stock rose on post-fourth-quarter earnings, which in turn lifted Elon Musk’s fortunes, with his net worth at around $187.1 billion after markets closed on Monday, returning him to the title of the richest person in the world, surpassing the $185.3 billion fortune Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury brand LVMH, who moves back to No. 2 after unseating musk in December of last year, CNN reported.
A recent study showed Tesla had the highest customer retention rate in the US, and the brand is essentially the electric car market in America at the moment, Electrek reported.
In his new annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, billionaire Warren Buffett slammed what he considers “one of the shames of capitalism,” Yahoo Finance reported.
“Beating ‘expectations’ is heralded as a managerial triumph,” Buffett said in the letter. “That activity is disgusting. It requires no talent to manipulate numbers: Only a deep desire to deceive is required. ‘Bold imaginative accounting,’ as a CEO once described his deception to me, has become one of the shames of capitalism.”
