Dow falls more than 100 points as investors await Fed meeting minutes: Live updates – CNBC

Jefferies says it’s “all revved up” on car rental company Hertz. 

The firm initiated coverage on Hertz with a buy rating and a $24 price target, implying shares jumping 30% from Monday’s close. 

“Our buy rating contemplates our view that pricing and margins can run structurally higher vs pre-COVID levels driven by a dysfunctional oligopoly turned functional, HTZ’s more [return on assets-focused] mindset, and continued supply constraints,” analyst Stephanie Moore wrote in a Wednesday note.

Shares gained more than 0.5% in morning trading on Wednesday.

To read more about the call, click here.

Factory orders data in May showed a rise of 0.3% on a month-over-month basis, which is lower than the 0.6% rise anticipated by economists polled by Dow Jones. It’s also lower than the 0.4% increase from the previous month.

— Sarah Min

The three major indexes were lower as the market opened.

The Dow dropped 0.5%. The S&P 500 slid 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite shed 0.3%.

— Alex Harring

One of the mysteries of the first half of the year was the surprisingly calm Cboe Volatility Index, which largely trended downward even as Wall Street alternated between recession fears and excitement about artificial intelligence.

The Vix, sometimes called Wall Street’s fear gauge, was trading at 14.50 on Wednesday morning, a level rarely seen since before the Covid pandemic.

JJ Kinahan, the CEO of IG North America, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the Vix will likely move slightly higher was earnings season starts up again and that the abnormally low levels were not a sign that something is wrong with the market.

“People are hesitant to be all in. As long as people continue to be hesitant, we can and continue go a bit higher, and I think we can go higher with the Vix creeping back to that 17 to 20 level,” Kinahan said.

— Jesse Pound

A handful of top performers in the first half of the year took a dip before the bell Wednesday.

Technology stocks Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet and Tesla slid in premarket trading Wednesday, weighing on the broader futures market. Wednesday marks the first full session of the second half of the year, as Monday was shortened and Tuesday was dark for the Fourth of July holiday.

Many technology names have surged in 2023, regaining ground following 2022’s selloff as investors grew excited around artificial technology and the potential for an improving interest rate environment.

— Alex Harring

Here are some of the names making moves in premarket trading:

• Rivian — The electric vehicle maker jumped 6.5%, adding to Monday’s gains after the company reported 12,640 deliveries during the second quarter. The deliveries were up 59% from the previous quarter and beat analyst expectations of 11,000 vehicles, according to StreetAccount.
• Coinbase — Shares slipped more than 2% after Piper Sandler downgraded the crypto services company and said that, despite the recent market rally following the SEC’s lawsuit against Coinbase, the increase in crypto prices haven’t translated to an increase in trading volume
• Transocean — The offshore oil drilling company’s stock rose 3.7% after Citi upgraded it to buy from neutral. Citi believes Transocean is favorably positioned among its offshore drilling peers, citing its sizable available fleet of idle rigs returning to work in the coming years.

See the full list here.

— Michelle Fox

Wednesday is the first full trading day this week since markets were dark Tuesday and closed early Monday for the Fourth of July holiday.

Here’s how the indexes did in Monday’s shortened session:

That session also marked the first of a new trading month, quarter and half-year. See the full recap of Monday’s trading day here.

— Alex Harring

The Federal Reserve later Wednesday will release minutes from its June 13-14 meeting, during which officials decided to skip a rate hike but said two more likely are on the way before the end of the year.

In the post-meeting statement, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee said a pause would provide time to assess the impact that 10 previous rate hikes would have.

However, the “dot plot” of rate projections indicated that members expected the pause to be temporary, and markets now expect a quarter percentage point rate hike at the July 25-26 meeting.

The minutes will be released at 2 p.m. ET.

—Jeff Cox

Netflix shares rose 0.8% Wednesday during premarket trading after Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan upgraded shares to neutral from sell. The firm also raised its price target from $230 to $400, which still represents downside of more than 9% from Monday’s close. 

Sheridan stated in a Tuesday client note that “NFLX [management] has executed its password sharing initiative in excess of our prior assumptions” in addition to regaining its momentum in content creation.

To be sure, the analyst added that the muted Neutral rating reflects Goldman’s “continued low visibility into the pathway to that upside node.”

The stock has rallied more than 49% year to date. Sheridan noted that shares have surged 135% since the bank added Netflix to its sell list in June 2022.

U.S. Treasury yields declined on Wednesday as investors looked ahead to the release of the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting minutes and comments from central bank officials, as well as key jobs data due later this week.

At 5:54 a.m. ET, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was down by more than one basis point to 3.8409%. The yield on the 2-year Treasury was last trading over five basis points lower at 4.8879%.

Yields and prices move in opposite directions and one basis point equals 0.01%.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Bank of America’s Jill Carey Hall said the bank’s clients bought $5.5 billion worth of equities last week, with single stocks and ETFS seeing sharp inflows. The flows were led by tech and communication services, which saw more than $1 billion in inflows each.

— Fred Imbert

China’s service sector activity remained in positive territory for a sixth straight month, according to a Caixin/S&P Global survey released on Wednesday.

The Caixin services purchasing managers index for June came in at 53.9, a slower rate of expansion than the 57.1 recorded in May.

The survey said “business activity and new orders both expanded at notably slower rates than seen in May, as some firms reported softer than expected market demand.”

— Lim Hui Jie

Services activity in Japan remained in expansion territory in June on strong demand conditions in the economy.

The final au Jibun Bank Japan Services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell from a record high of 55.9 in May to 54 in June, both well above the 50-mark that separates contraction and growth.

“The Japanese services economy signaled that demand conditions remained positive during June,” Usamah Bhatti, Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a Wednesday release.

Both business activity and new business were among the highest in the series history, Bhatti noted.

— Jihye Lee

May factory orders data is set to release Wednesday after the open.

Economists polled by Dow Jones are anticipating a rise of 0.6%, which would be greater than the 0.4% increase the previous month.

— Sarah Min

U.S. stock futures were little changed on Tuesday night as Wall Street looks to resume a holiday-shortened week. Markets were closed Tuesday for the Fourth of July holiday. They closed early Monday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell by 31 points, or 0.09%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.05% and 0.11%, respectively.

— Sarah Min