Coffee With Greta: Can Apple Reclaim $2 Trillion?
DJIA Futures: +141 (+0.4%)
SPX Futures: +23 (+0.6%)
NASDAQ Futures: +90 (+0.8%)
Good morning friends!
Futures are higher as traders try to shake off Tuesday’s down start to the year and look ahead to key economic data.
Let’s get right to it!
Apple Market Cap Drops Below $2 Trillion
Apple (AAPL) shares are up 1.1% ahead of the open, rebounding from Tuesday’s decline that pushed the tech giant’s market cap below $2 trillion.
It was the first time since May that the iPhone maker’s valuation slipped below that key level.
AAPL shares closed 3.7% lower Tuesday at $125.07, a new 52-week low and putting the company’s market cap at $1.99 trillion.
The stock has fallen sharply from its brief jump above a $3 trillion market cap in January 2022.
Apple’s share price fell nearly 27% in 2022.
Salesforce To Cut 10% Of Its Workforce
Salesforce (CRM) shares are up 4.7% in premarket trade after announcing a restructuring plan.
The tech company said today it will lay off about 10% of its employees and close some offices.
Those moves are expected to lead to between $1.4 billion and $2.1 billion in charges.
$800 million to $1 billion of that will be record in fiscal Q4 2023.
Co-CEO Marc Benioff said in a letter to employees, “The environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions.”
Laid-off employees in the U.S. will receive five months pay, health insurance, and other benefits as part of their severance package.
GE Healthcare Spinoff Starts Trading Today
General Electric (GE) shares are up 0.3% ahead of the open as the company’s healthcare spinoff is set to begin trading as a separate company today.
GE Healthcare Technologies will trade on the S&P 500 under the ticker symbol GEHC.
This is part of GE’s plans it revealed in 2021 to break up into three separate companies so it can focus on its aviation business.
The company plans to spinoff its energy segment in 2024.
Ford Reigns As America’s Bestselling Truck
Ford (F) are up 0.9% in premarket trade, extending Tuesday’s gains.
The automaker reported sales of its F-Series pickups surpassed 640,000 trucks in 2022.
That made the F-Series America’s bestselling truck for the 46th straight year and the bestselling vehicle overall for 41 years.
The 2022 sales were down from 726,004 F-Series trucks sold in 2021.
Ford is set to report its total year-end sales for 2022 on Thursday.
Mortgage Demand Plunges At End of 2022
Mortgage demand plunged at the end of 2022 as rates pushed higher and seasonal slowness weighed on the market.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported total application volume dropped 13.2% last week compared to 2 weeks earlier.
MBA was closed the prior week due to the holiday.
Purchase applications dropped 12.2% on a weekly basis and were down 42% year over year.
Refinance applications tumbled 16.3% weekly and 87% annually.
The average 30-year fixed contract rate rose to 6.58% from 6.34%.
That’s up sharply from 3.33% at the end of 2021.
JOLTS Preview
The Labor Department releases the first piece of key jobs data later this morning.
The November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) will be out at 10:00 a.m. ET.
That survey is expected to show there were 10.1 million job openings in November, down from 10.3 million in October.
Although openings are still outnumbering job seekers, that gap has shrunk as the labor market tightened at the end of 2022.
In Case You Missed It
- The contraction in the U.S. manufacturing sector deepened in December. The S&P Global Manufacturing PMI fell to 46.2 from 47.7 in November. That was the lowest reading since May 2020 and the second straight month of contraction.
- Tesla (TSLA) shares plunged 12.2% on Tuesday after the electric automaker reported weaker-than-expected Q4 deliveries and production. The drop came as some analysts took that miss as a warning sign for Tesla’s future. The company still reported record 40% growth in deliveries year over year. TSLA shares are up 1.1% ahead of the open.