May 2, 2024

Markets:

Stock futures advanced Thursday as investors looked ahead to more corporate earnings and a key labor data set for later in the week.

In after-hours trading, chipmaker Qualcomm rose more than 3% on better-than-expected adjusted earnings and strong revenue guidance. Restaurant delivery service DoorDash dropped 15% after reporting a wider loss per share than Wall Street forecast. Used-car retailer Carvana soared nearly 40% after reporting best-ever earnings after the bell Wednesday.

Those moves followed a choppy day on Wall Street as investors reacted to the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged. In the closely-watched press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell essentially ruled out an interest rate hike as the central bank’s next move, despite few recent signs of easing inflation.

Powell’s emphasis on the next central bank move likely not being a hike “should be soothing for financial markets".

Traders still expect a rate cut won’t come until at least September, according to the latest futures market pricing as measured the CME Group.

Investors will watch Thursday for economic data on weekly jobless claims, first-quarter worker productivity and unit labor costs, as well as March figures on the trade deficit and factory orders. Those releases all come ahead of Friday’s closely watched April jobs report.

Thursday’s quarterly earnings reports are dominated by Apple and Amgen after the close, alongside Coinbase and DraftKing. Before the market opens, Modernaand Peloton are both scheduled to post results.

Portfolio:

Wild session yesterday leading into the FOMC, during the release, and after the release into the close. Algos trade off key words and it was so clear yesterday at how they control the speed of price action. Now, with that said, today is the true price activity. This has always been our stance after a FOMC and what we will continue to share with our community. The next few sessions are the real tells and price discovery. Yesterday they actually sucked the premium out of calls and puts with the monster swings in the last hour. Incredible to watch. Powell set it straight yesterday, no stagflation, zero chance for a hike over the next quarter. Immediately that tells us tech is in play, watch this narrative now build.

We enter the session holding setups for the next few weeks with TSLL, PLTR, AI, PATH, and S. No changes needed. We will evaluate all price activity and sector movement this morning. Then we proceed. Monster report coming after the close with AAPL and we want to be patient here.  Last major event for the next week or so.