US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks open in the green as tech rebounds although the equal weight S&P falls slightly
US EQUITY OPEN: Stocks have opened higher on Tuesday, with the Nasdaq outperforming amid a rebound in tech shares following Monday's slump, as semiconductor and memory names recover. The equal-weight S&P 500 is slightly lower, indicating marginal negative underlying breadth, while sectors are mixed. Technology, Industrials and Communication Services outperform, while Energy, Consumer Staples and Materials lag. Weakness in Consumer Staples is led by Dick's (DKS), which cut guidance amid challenging athletic footwear and apparel markets, also weighing on peers including Nike (NKE), Lululemon (LULU) and On Holding (ONON).
Energy stocks are tracking crude prices lower amid renewed US-Iran optimism. The NYT reported that the US is considering returning diplomats to Middle Eastern embassies as soon as this week, suggesting the Trump administration does not anticipate an imminent return to all-out hostilities. Meanwhile, Saudi Press reported that Pakistan Army Chief Munir conveyed a US offer to Iran to halt the siege and lift sanctions under the MoU in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending proxy attacks.
Treasury yields are lower across the curve, with the decline in oil prices helping support Treasuries. The richening is also worth watching ahead of today's USD 69bln 2-year auction, as the lower outright yield on offer could weigh on demand, although the recent curve flattening has improved the relative-value proposition for the front end by reducing the yield pickup available from extending duration.
In FX, currencies are little changed, with the Dollar flat, the Yen marginally softer and cyclical currencies seeing modest gains, excluding CAD amid weaker oil prices and ongoing trade tensions with the US. Gold is giving back some of its recent gains despite the lower-yield environment.
STOCK SPECIFICS
- Alibaba Group (BABA): Jack Ma buys HKD 600mln of Alibaba shares
- DICK'S Sporting Goods (DKS): Dismal report; quarterly metrics missed and cut guidance due to weakness in footwear and athletic apparel; in sympathy, Nike and Lululemon also lower
- Tesla (TSLA): Raised the price of its Cybertruck dual-motor and premium all-wheel-drive variants by USD 5,000 each in the US
- United Airlines (UAL): Announces largest international network expansion in company history, with 10 new international cities and three new routes across Europe and Asia
- Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): Upgraded at Raymond James to 'Strong Buy' from 'Outperform' as it expects AMD will overtake Intel in the CPU market.
Sessions of this shape, a headline index rebound led by the prior day's losers while equal weight lags, have tended to mark mean reversion in crowded positioning rather than a broad risk turn; the gap between cap-weighted and equal-weighted performance is the tell, and narrow tech-led recoveries after single-session slumps have historically proven fragile when breadth fails to confirm. The oil decline on reported US-Iran diplomatic movement follows the familiar pattern in which geopolitical risk premia in crude are added and stripped on headlines rather than on supply flows, with the energy sector and CAD the usual transmission points and the front end of the Treasury curve supported via the inflation-expectations channel. The 2-year auction framing matters because richening into a supply event has tended to produce concession-driven tails more often than strong stops when the outright yield is the draw, though curve flattening improving relative value is the countervailing factor named in the note itself. The consumer discretionary weakness is idiosyncratic, a guidance cut propagating to peers in the same footwear and apparel complex, a sympathy pattern that typically fades within sessions unless the read-across is confirmed by the peers' own prints. The worth-watching follow-ons are the auction result, any confirmation or denial of the diplomatic reports, and whether equal weight closes the gap with the cap-weighted index or the divergence widens into the close.