Stocks closed lower on Thursday as investors grappled with a slew of disappointing corporate earnings reports and looked ahead to the release of a key inflation measure tomorrow.
of Dow Jones Industrial Average I suffered a big loss today. Salesforce (CRM) fell sharply after reporting earnings, but the blue-chip stock wasn’t the day’s biggest loser.
Indeed, CRM’s 19.7% drop was its largest single-day loss ever. Dow Jones Stock Price Since 2004, this decline has been driven by software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Missed the top line The company beat earnings expectations for the first quarter and also gave a weaker outlook for the second quarter.
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but Coles (KSS) is a department store chain reported unexpected losses The company’s first-quarter earnings also fell short of expectations as same-store sales fell 4.4%.
“Our first-quarter results fell short of expectations and do not reflect the direction of our strategic initiatives,” CEO Tom Kingsbury said in the earnings call.
UI Pass Meanwhile, PATH plunged 34% after news that the automation company’s CEO would step down this weekend came after it beat first-quarter earnings expectations. PATH also lowered its full-year outlook.
“These developments suggest the business is in transition and will raise concerns that artificial intelligence is weakening rather than strengthening the company’s moat,” the Oppenheimer analysts said. Brian Schwartz (equivalent to neutral and hold)
HP soars on better-than-expected profits
However, the situation was not pessimistic in terms of profits. home page (HPQ) stock price was announced by the PC and printer maker Better-than-expected third quarter resultsThe company also expects sales of AI PCs and workstations to start increasing from next fiscal year.
HPQ is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Before its holding company divested from its tech holdings earlier this year, the company had been performing strongly in 2023. Year-to-date, shares are up 27.5%.
Best Buy (BBY, +13.4%) and Foot Locker (FL, +14.9%) was also a stock that saw a notable increase after announcing its earnings results.
Among major stock indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9% to 38,111. S&P 500 It fell 0.6% to 5,235. Nasdaq Composite Index It fell 1.1% to 16,737.
First quarter GDP revised down
The losses came despite a downward revision in first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth (to 1.3 percent, from an earlier estimate of 1.6 percent) and rising expectations that the Federal Reserve would begin cutting interest rates. Interest level As early as September.
In fact, CME Group FedWatchToolsFutures traders now estimate a 45% chance that the Fed will cut rates by 0.25 percentage point in September, up from 42.1% the previous day.
This issue will become clearer tomorrow when the April personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed’s favorite economic indicator, is released. inflation It tracks consumer spending.
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