The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose slightly early Thursday, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq opened lower. Meanwhile, Tesla and Netflix fell after their earnings reports, along with Taiwan Semiconductor in a busy overnight for quarterly results.
TSLA stock fell after Tesla earnings topped views. But Chief Executive Elon Musk said it's "silly" to worry about falling profit margins as he offered little news about the Cybertruck or other key products. Also, Netflix stock slumped on weak revenue despite strong subscriber gains.
Early Thursday, Taiwan Semiconductor topped views, though gross margins contracted. The chip foundry giant, which makes chips for Apple, Nvidia and many others, gave cautious guidance going forward. TSM stock retreated modestly from near an early entry in an emerging consolidation.
Among other overnight earnings, United Airlines and American Airlines topped views. So did D.R. Horton, Johnson & Johnson, Travelers and Las Vegas Sands. UAL stock popped, rising in a buy zone. D.R. Horton jumped while TRV stock rose more than 1%. JNJ stock was flat. American Air and LVS stock fell modestly.
Discover Financial plunged on an earnings miss.
Meanwhile, copper giant Freeport McMoRan traded narrowly higher as investors dug into its mixed report.
Tesla stock is on IBD Leaderboard, with UAL stock on the Leaderboard watchlist.
Dow Jones Futures Today
The Dow Jones benchmark opened 0.5% higher, with Dow components IBM, TRCV and JNJ stock powering early trade. The S&P 500 dipped less than 0.1%. The Nasdaq dropped 0.5%, with Netflix and TSLA stock leading the declines among Nasdaq 100 stocks.
Many other tech titans, including Apple stock, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon.com, Nvidia stock and Meta Platforms were down slightly, weighing on the Nasdaq as well. Microsoft edged higher.
The Labor Department released weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET. Claims fell 9,000 to 228,000 in the week ended July 15 vs. views for a rise to 242,000. The Philly Fed's manufacturing index, also out at 8:30 a.m., edged up 0.2 point to a still-negative -13.5, below estimates for -10. June existing-home sales will be out at 10 a.m.
Crude oil prices rose slightly, while copper prices popped almost 2% amid hopes China will offer more support for its ailing property sector.
The 10-year Treasury yield rose several basis points to 3.82%.
Remember that overnight action in Dow futures and elsewhere doesn't necessarily translate into actual trading in the next regular stock market session.
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Stock Market Rally
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% in Wednesday's stock market trading. The S&P 500 index climbed 0.2%. The Nasdaq composite ended just above break-even. The small-cap Russell 2000 gained 0.45%.
U.S. crude oil prices fell 0.5% to $75.35 a barrel. The 10-year Treasury yield slid 5 basis points to 3.73%.
Tesla Earnings
Tesla earnings rose 20% during the second quarter vs. a year earlier, beating views, helped by currency swings. But operating profit missed forecasts and fell 2.6% vs. a year earlier. Revenue jumped 47% to $24.93 billion. Shanghai lockdowns in during the quarter that shut down Tesla's huge factory there made year-over-year comparisons easy.
Gross margin fell to 18.2% from 19.3% in the first quarter and 25% a year earlier, as Tesla continued to cut prices and offer other incentives to push up vehicle sales.
On the earnings call, CEO Musk "short-term variances in gross margins" will "look silly" when "autonomy" vastly expands Tesla's profitability. That suggests Musk isn't concerned about further margin declines.
Musk said owners of full self-driving cars will be allowed to freely transfer their FSD rights to a new Tesla in the third quarter. That could provide a one-time sales boost, though without the extra FSD revenue.
Tesla provided few details about the Cybertruck, except to say that it "remains on track to begin initial production later this year." That suggests an Austin-made Cybertruck touted on Saturday wasn't made on the production line.
There also was scant information about an upcoming Model 3 upgrade and possibly real hints on a future, next-generation model
Musk did say Tesla will cut production over the summer for factory upgrades. Output has exceeded deliveries for several quarters, even with production already well below capacity.
Tesla stock fell more than 4% early Thursday, just giving up weekly gains. TSLA stock has more than doubled in 2023, and is working toward a 313.80 buy point from a very deep cup base going back nearly 10 months.
Netflix Earnings
Netflix's password-sharing crackdown paid off during the second quarter, with 5.9 million subscribers added, crushing views for 1.8 million. Earnings also topped views, but revenue and revenue guidance came in light.
NFLX stock fell more than 7% in early trade. Shares had rallied 8.1% this week through Wednesday, up 62% in 2023.
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Tech Titans
Tech megacaps were down fractionally early Thursday, not showing real chart damage but providing a drag on the broader market.
Apple stock, which hit a record high Wednesday, lost 0.6%.
MSFT stock, Google and Amazon fell fractionally as well. NVDA stock and Meta dropped 1%.
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