Stock futures opened flat to slightly lower Monday evening, as investors took a pause after another rally in tech stocks sent the Nasdaq Composite to a record close.
Shares of big tech companies including Amazon (AMZN) traded flat after-hours following a 1% gain during Monday’s regular session, afterNeedham analysts having said in a new note that Amazon shares could be worth as much as $5,000 apiece. Tesla (TSLA) shares hovered near the flat line in late trading after jumping more than 11% to a record closing high, after Wedbush analysts raised their price target on the stock by $100 to $1,900 earlier in the day. Nvidia (NVDA) also closed at a record high on Monday, two days before the semiconductor company is set to report its latest quarterly results.
Walmart (WMT) and Home Depot (HD) each also closed at record highs on Monday, with both retailers set to report quarterly earnings results Tuesday morning. Consensus analysts expect to see Walmart grow sales 4% over last year to $135.6 billion, while adjusted earnings are expected to tick down 4% to $1.24 per share, as consumers turned to the company for lower-margin home necessities like food and paper goods during the height of the pandemic period and stay-in-place orders. Home Depot is expected to grow both sales and profit over last year, as consumers flocked to the retailer for DIY projects while working from home, and as housing market activity and home-building picked up in late spring.
Equity trading over the past week or so has reflected a widening breadth in markets, with cyclicals vying for leadership after a months-long run of outperformance among big tech and “stay-at-home” stocks viewed as more insulated from the negative business impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. However, any signs of a full-fledged rotation have lacked conviction, with financials, energy and industrials sectors once again lagging during Monday’s session as investors considered ongoing uncertainty around the pandemic, fiscal stimulus prospects and the presidential elections.
“I think the factors around quality – quality growth, strong balance sheets, positive cash flow, dominance in industries, management team – those factors have been leadership factors across all 11 sectors, and I think that will continue to define leadership in this environment,” Liz Ann Sonders, Charles Schwab’s Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Strategist, told Yahoo Finance’s The Ticker on Monday.
“We’ve seen these multiple phases, and we had that first phase, that recovery phase from mid-May until the middle of June, when there was that hope that we were seeing a strong recovery. And you saw that leadership shift from just the Covid winners out to the more traditionally cyclical areas, and then more recently we seem to have tried that again,” she added. “We’ve had some fits and starts of tech profit-taking and a move into industrials, financials. But it’s been fleeting so far, and I think the market is sending – and rightly so – a mixed message, an uncertain message about what this next stage in the recovery looks like.”
—
Here were the main moves in equity markets, as of 6:13 p.m. ET:
-
S&P 500 futures (ES=F): 3,378.00, down 1.75 points, or 0.05%
-
Dow futures (YM=F): 27,761.00, down 14 points, or 0.05%
-
Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): 11,285.25, down 1.5 points, or 0.01%
A trader makes a phone call outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on July 20, 2020 at Wall Street in New York City. – Wall Street stocks were mixed early July, 20, 2020 as markets awaited congressional debate on another round of stimulus spending and major earnings releases later in the week. (Photo by Johannes EISELE / AFP) (Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images)
—
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and reddit.
Find live stock market quotes and the latest business and finance news
For tutorials and information on investing and trading stocks, check out Cashay