Here are five things you must know for Wednesday, April 14:
1. — Stock Futures Fluctuate After JPMorgan Earnings
Stock futures fluctuated Wednesday as investors turned their focus to earnings from JPMorgan Chase (JPM) – Get Report, Goldman Sachs (GS) – Get Report and Wells Fargo (WFC) – Get Report.
JPMorgan reported first-quarter earnings Wednesday of $4.50 a share vs 78 cents a share a year earlier. Analysts were expecting earnings of $3.09 a share.
Contracts linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 20 points, S&P 500 futures were up 2 points and futures on the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 21 points.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury rose early Wednesday to 1.632% following an auction of 30-year bonds that was met with strong demand. Yields have eased in April as fears have ebbed that the Federal Reserve would boost interest rates sooner than expected to curtail inflation resulting from the U.S. recovery.
The S&P 500 closed at a record high Tuesday as investors looked past an uptick in U.S. consumer inflation. The Dow declined after U.S. health officials recommended a pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) – Get Report coronavirus vaccine following rare clotting cases.
“By all accounts,” traders “took the well-telegraphed inflation ‘pick-up’ in stride,” said Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at Axicorp. “All the while, markets remain seemingly unfazed by the halt in that J&J Covid-19 vaccine rollout.”
2. — Wednesday’s Calendar: JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs Earnings
JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Bath & Beyond (BBBY) – Get Report and First Republic Bank (FRC) – Get Report will be reporting earnings Wednesday.
According to FactSet, Wall Street expects a 24.5% increase in earnings for companies in the S&P 500.
Trading JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs: Bank Earnings Preview
Here’s What Jim Cramer Is Watching on Bank Earnings
The U.S. economic calendar for Wednesday includes MBA Mortgage Applications for the week ended April 9 at 7 a.m. ET, Import and Export Prices for March at 8:30 a.m., Oil Inventories for the week ended April 9 at 10:30 a.m. and the Federal Reserve’s “Beige Book” at 2 p.m.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will be taking part in a discussion at the Economic Club of Washington at 12 p.m.
Wells Fargo is a holding in Jim Cramer’s Action Alerts PLUS member club. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells WFC? Learn more now.
3. — Coinbase Reference Price Set at $250, to Debut Wednesday
The Nasdaq set a reference price of $250 for the direct listing of Coinbase Global (COIN) – Get Report, the cryptocurrency exchange that will begin trading Wednesday.
At that price, Coinbase would be valued at about $65 billion.
A reference price only reflects recent activity in private markets and doesn’t show where a stock in a direct listing will actually open.
Recent direct listings from Roblox (RBLX) – Get Report, Palantir Technologies (PLTR) – Get Report and Slack Technologies (WORK) – Get Report have opened an average of 37% above their reference prices, according to CNBC.
Coinbase, the largest U.S. digital currency exchange, on Tuesday received a buy rating and $600 price target at MoffettNathanson.
Jim Cramer, founder of TheStreet, told “Mad Money” viewers on Tuesday that Coinbase was a great company with terrific management but was coming to market at the worst possible time.
Bitcoin set another record high, rising to as high as $64,829 on Wednesday for the first time ahead of the Coinbase listing, according to CoinDesk.
4. — Dogecoin Surges Amid Cryptocurrency Frenzy
Dogecoin, an open-source cryptocurrency started in 2013 as a joke based on a popular meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog, was rising 73% over the past 24 hours to $13.11, according to CoinDesk.
The price of the cryptocurrency has soared 2,527% so far in 2021.
Dogecoin’s market cap was last listed at CoinDesk at $16.92 billion.
Dogecoin started soaring earlier this year after Tesla’s (TSLA) – Get Report Elon Musk tweeted about the cryptocurrency and retail investors expanded their buying frenzy to digital currency.
5. — Stitch Fix Founder Lake to Step Down as CEO
Stitch Fix (SFIX) – Get Report fell about 1% in premarket trading Wednesday after the San Francisco personal styling service said founder Katrina Lake would step down as CEO.
President Elizabeth Spaulding will take over as chief executive on Aug. 1.
Lake will become executive chairwoman.
She founded Stitch Fix in 2011 as a Harvard Business School student. The company went public in 2017. It now posts annual revenue of $1.7 billion and employs 8,000 people.