NEW YORK (awp international) – The US stock market is likely to open on Wednesday at the start of the quarterly reporting season without a clear direction. Around three quarters of an hour before the start of trading, the broker IG rated the leading index Dow Jones Industrial around 0.1 percent lower at 34,200 points. IG expected the technology-heavy and very volatile Nasdaq 100 to rise by around 0.2 percent.
The US reporting season is traditionally heralded with the business figures of some large financial institutions. On Wednesday, the largest US bank JPMorgan Chase informed about the latest development, which was less positively received by the market. The stock fell 3.4 percent in premarket trading. JPMorgan started the year with significantly less profit than expected due to higher loan loss provisions. Because the particularly high yields from the beginning of 2021 were not repeated, the surplus fell sharply in a year-on-year comparison. Analysts had expected a better development, especially in investment banking. Meanwhile, the bank plans to buy back its own shares for $30 billion.
The US airline Delta Air Lines sees itself on the up again after a first quarter with deep red numbers. “We returned to profitability in March,” said CEO Ed Bastian. Business recovered quickly after the setback caused by the omicron variant of the corona virus that was rampant at the beginning of the year. The outlook was well received by investors. The stock gained 5.4 percent premarket.
Sierra Oncology shares are up 38 percent premarket. The British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline wants to take over the cancer researcher for 1.9 billion dollars. JPMorgan analysts think the deal makes sense given Sierra’s drug pipeline and the purchase price is not unreasonably high.
Tesla boss Elon Musk is threatened with legal trouble after joining Twitter as a major investor. A shareholder of the company launched a potential class action lawsuit against the multi-billionaire in a court in New York over alleged securities fraud. This was announced by the competent law firm in Boston. The plaintiff accused Musk of not making his Twitter investment public within the statutory reporting period. This delayed a stock market reaction and kept the stock price artificially low while it continued to increase its stake./edh/jha/
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