Stocks: Dow Futures Slip, Walmart Beats Forecasts

Stock futures slipped Tuesday even as earnings from Walmart WMT +0.29% and Home Depot HD –0.09% topped Wall Street forecasts.

Earnings from Home Depot (ticker: HD) beat estimates but the stock declined as customer transactions declined 3% in the second quarter. Walmart (WMT) was rising 3.4% after earnings and revenue at the giant retailer topped forecasts.

Contracts linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA +0.45% on Tuesday fell 66 points, or 0.2%, to 33,807, S&P 500 SPX +0.40% futures were down 0.2% and Nasdaq COMP +0.62% futures declined 0.2%. Crude oil prices slumped.

Stocks closed higher on Monday despite a surprise rate cut from China following data that showed a weakening of retail sales and factory output in the world’s second-largest economy, while the New York Federal Reserve’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey missed expectations by a wide margin. In addition, U.S. home builder sentiment declined for the eight straight month.

Stocks have risen for four straight weeks as signs of cooling inflation at both the consumer and wholesales levels have led investors to bet on a less aggressive Federal Reserve. The central bank has increased interest rates four times this year — the last two by three-quarters of a percentage point — in its effort to slow the economy.

The Federal Open Market Committee will publish the minutes from its policy meeting in July on Wednesday. At that session, the Fed boosted rates by 0.75 a percentage point for the second straight month. The minutes will be read closely for signals on the Fed’s next move.

Tim Pagliara, chief investment officer at CapWealth, a wealth management firm in Franklin, Tennessee, said a few softer inflation readings “doesn’t mean the Fed will slow or even pause the pace of rate hikes, which is what the market is expecting.”

Pagliara said the recent market “melt-up” was “more akin to a bear market rally and we remind investors that the dot-com bubble saw four bear market rallies of 20% or more, with each one testing new lows.”

These stocks are moving in premarket trading Tuesday:

• Zoom Video (ZM) fell 3.2% after analysts at Citi cut their rating on the stock to Sell from Neutral.
• Aerojet Rocketdyne (AJRD) rose 4.6% after Elliott Investment Management reported a 3.7% stake in the defense company.
• Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA), a developer in the emerging field of synthetic biology, rose 16.3% after second-quarter revenue beat analysts’ estimates.
• ZipRecruiter (ZIP) declined 6.1% after cutting its revenue guidance for the year. 

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