Coffee With Greta: Final Week Of August
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DJIA Futures: +151 (+0.4%)
SPX Futures: +19 (+0.4%)
NASDAQ Futures: +84 (+0.6%)
Good morning friends!
Futures are higher as traders gear up for the final week of August.
Let’s get right to it!
Chinese EV Maker Xpeng Rallies
Xpeng Inc (XPEV) shares are up 6.3% ahead of the open after announcing it is buying Chinese ride-hailing company Didi’s smart electric car development business.
Xpeng’s shares in Hong Kong jumped 10.9% following the announcement.
The deal is an all-stock transaction worth $744 million and Didi will become a strategic shareholder of Xpeng.
Xpeng said it plans to develop a new electric car to target the 150,000 yuan ($20,580) price range.
The company’s current cars sell for around 200,000 yuan or more.
The new car will be part of a new brand under the project name “MONA”.
3M Settles Earplug Lawsuits
3M (MMM) shares are rising 5.6% in premarket trade following a Bloomberg report the company has tentatively agreed to settle over 300,000 lawsuits over its earplugs.
The company is expected to pay out more than $5.5 billion over five years under the settlement.
3M’s board of directors still needs to approve the agreement.
The suits claim the company sold the U.S. military defective combat earplugs.
A 3M representative could not confirm the report, telling Bloomberg the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.
Important Data Week
It will be another important week of economic data for the Fed as the September 20 rate decision approaches.
This week is focused on the labor market and inflation.
Here’s the schedule:
- Tuesday: S&P Case-Shiller home price index, JOLTS, consumer confidence
- Wednesday: ADP private employment report, Q2 GDP revision, pending home sales
- Thursday: Weekly jobless claims, PCE price index, core PCE price index, personal income, personal spending
- Friday: August jobs report, unemployment rate, hourly wages, ISM manufacturing PMI, construction spending
CME Group’s FedWatch Tool still shows 80.5% of traders expecting no rate hike at the September meeting, even after the Fed Chair’s Jackson Hole speech on Friday.
In that speech, Powell said inflation “remains too high” and, “We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective.”