Newscasts - US Morning Call: Inflation & politics take centre stage ahead of Thanksgiving

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27/11/2024 13:15

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Source: 'Reuters - Business videos'

Description: PCE Price Index data for October is high on the agenda on
Wednesday morning, with equity trading already drying up ahead of the
Thanksgiving weekend. But there were some double-digit swings to be found on
Wall Street, following some bruising quarterly results.
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Video Transcript:

Inflation and politics take centerstage ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Welcome to your US Morning Call. I am Thomas Warner. Today's trading kicks off
with this week's initial jobless claims, which is seen slightly higher on the
week. But it is the PCE price index at 10:00AM Eastern that is likely to grab
the headlines. It is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation and it is seen
ticking up to 2.3% in October. A major deviation from that forecast would give
US central bankers plenty to think about on their day off tomorrow. But one
analyst that we spoke to said that Wall Street is already shutting down ahead
of the holiday.

The key market drivers today I think are really just that we are in the dead
week of the Thanksgiving holiday. I do not think there is a ton of volume
going on. I would not take anything from the markets as we see them right now.
This is typically a week of much lower volume. Most people are not thinking
about trading stocks. So, any trades that are happening are not really
indicative of broader trend in my opinion.

Well, it may look from these top lines that traders have already turned their
attention to the turkey, but there were some Q3 earnings out this morning that
have caused some hefty swings beneath the surface. Dell and HP are both set
for double-digit declines, with Dell down 12% pre-market after warning that
its Q4 revenue will come in below forecast. It has benefit this year from a
hardware partnership with NVIDIA that has brought its share price up 86%. But
it appears consumers are now delaying buying their new Dell systems while they
wait for NVIDIA's new Blackwell AI chip. HP, meanwhile, is set to open around
10% lower after flagging first-quarter profit below forecast. Traditional PC
makers, like HP, have been grappling with soft demand following a boom during
the pandemic. Consumers are yet to be convinced of the benefit of AI PCs. And
shares in fashion brand, GUESS, are down 13% on their results. They included a
quarterly loss of $23.4 million, as well as a hefty fall in net earnings. The
company blamed consumer sentiment in the US and in Asia as well. Away from
Wall Street, president-elect Donald Trump has chosen Jamieson Greer as the new
US trade representative. The trade lawyer is a veteran of Trump's first-term
trade war with China. Trump tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico announced
earlier this week suggest that Greer's role in the new administration is
likely to be a prominent one. And those measures have prompted a swift
response from Chinese authorities and state media today. They have warned that
Trump risks bringing the world's top two economies into a mutually destructive
tit-for-tat tariff war. And finally, oil prices are up very slightly this
morning, with traders still evaluating a ceasefire deal between Israel and
Hezbollah. They have also got one eye on this coming Sunday when the OPEC+
group could once again delay a planned increase in oil output. WTI was last
seen trading at around $89 per barrel. And that is your US Morning Call