Stock Market Today: Wall Street may hit pause on searing May rally; GameStop buckles

Stocks are on pace for their fourth straight week of gains after hitting another intra-day peak on Thursday.

May 17, 2024 - 18:30

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Stock Market Today: Wall Street may hit pause on searing May rally; GameStop buckles

Check back for updates throughout the trading day

U.S. equity futures were mixed in early Friday trading, while Treasury yields and the dollar ticked higher, as investors looked set to hit pause on a month-long rally on Wall Street that has lifted all three major benchmark to records.

Updated at 8:00 AM EDT

GameStop shopping

GameStop GME filed plans for a new equity capital raising with the SEC Friday, while also posting preliminary first quarter earnings that suggest a big decline in revenues and a net loss of as much as $37 million.

GameStop shares, which have surged more than 168% over the past month, were marked 23% lower in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $21.32 each.

GameStop Announces First Quarter Preliminary Results $GME #GME

Net sales in the range of $0.872B to $0.892B compared to $1.237B
Net loss expected to be in range of $27-$37M compared to a net loss of $50.5M
Cash $1.073-$1.093B compared to $1.310B last year pic.twitter.com/WxRrTgi2ce— Frank's Place (@Franks_Place_) May 17, 2024

Stock Market Today

Stocks ended modestly lower last night, after touching records earlier in the session, as investors took profits from the market's recent gains and digested a series of hawkish comments on rate hikes from a host of Federal Reserve officials.

"One data point is not a trend and one change does not determine the next three months," Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic told an event in Washington in reference to the softer-than-expected April inflation report from earlier in the week.

Traders made modest adjustments to bets on a September rate cut, paring the overall odds of a September move to around 69%, according to CME Group FedWatch data, while selling Treasury bonds.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which topped the 40,000 point mark yesterday, is on pace for its fifth consecutive weekly gain.
BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty

Benchmark 10-year notes were marked 3 basis points higher in the overnight session at 4.389% while 2-year notes nudged 2 basis points higher to 4.786%.

The U.S. dollar index, meanwhile, added 0.27% against its major global peers to trade at 104.739 heading into the start of the New York session.

On Wall Street, stocks are priced for a muted open, but are still on pace for a fourth straight weekly advance, powered by interest-rate-cut hopes and stronger-than-expected earnings forecasts.

Futures contracts tied to the S&P 500, which is up 11.05% for the year, suggest a 2-point opening-bell dip for the benchmark, with the Nasdaq priced for a 20 point opening bell gain.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is on a five-week win streak and topped the 40,000 point mark for the first time last night, is set for a modest 10-point pullback.

Stocks on the move include semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials (AMAT) , which slipped 1% in premarket trading after a muted revenue forecast clouded its second quarter earnings beat.

Videogame maker Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) , meanwhile, fell 2.2% after planning the release of its next blockbuster, "Grand Theft Auto VI," for fall 2025. That's just outside the end of its current fiscal year, which ends next March.

Reddit (RDDT) shares, on the other side, surged 10.2% after the newly listed social-media website unveiled a new content sharing deal with ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

More Wall Street Analysts:

In overseas markets, Britain's FTSE 100 slipped 0.38% lower in London while the region-wide Stoxx 600 benchmark fell 0.33% in Frankfurt.

Overnight in Asia, stocks in China got a boost from a new drive from Beijing to support the domestic property market, although the MSCI ex-Japan index was marked 0.14% lower into the close of trading.

A modestly firmer yen, meanwhile, as well as a pullback in tech stocks kept the Nikkei 225 in the red, with the index closing 0.34% lower at 38,787.83 points.