Stock market today: Live updates

UBS believes the tech rally has more room to run — meaning investors should make sure they have some exposure to the sector. However, they should “optimize” their holdings among tech names, according to the investment bank.

“Investors should avoid missing further potential gains in tech, while ensuring diversification and considering ways to limit losses in case of consolidation,” strategist Sagar Khandelwal wrote in a note on March 22.

Khandelwal recommends diversifying tech exposure across regions and sectors, as well as having structured strategies to potentially defend against a near-term correction.

— Hakyung Kim

Weekly jobless claims came in lower than expected for the week ending on March 16, 2024.

Initial filings for unemployment insurance totaled 210,000. This was slightly lower than the 211,000 that economists polled by the Dow Jones expected.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance fell about 1.4% in premarket trading after the company released its fiscal second quarter results.

On the positive side, the pharmacy chain reported $37.05 billion in sales, topping the $35.86 billion expected by Wall Street analysts, according to LSEG.

However, the company did narrow its full-year guidance for adjusted earnings per share to $3.20 to $3.35 due in part to a “challenging retail environment in the U.S.” Previous guidance called for earnings per share between $3.20 and $3.50.

The company also reported a net loss for the second quarter of nearly $6 billion, due largely to a goodwill impairment charge related to VillageMD.

— Jesse Pound, Melissa Repko

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell.

Walgreens Boots Alliance — Shares dipped 1.6% after the company’s fiscal second quarter report was released. Walgreens generated $37.05 billion in revenue for the quarter, topping the LSEG forecast of $35.86 billon. However, the company also narrowed its full-year adjusted earnings guidance due in part to a “challenging retail environment.”

Estee Lauder — Shares rose more than 3% after a Bank of America upgrade to buy from neutral. The firm cited profitability recovery efforts, new products and improving share in the prestige beauty sector. 

Allstate — The insurance stock rose 0.9% following an HSBC upgrade to buy from hold. Analyst Vikram Gandhi highlighted the company’s “decisive management actions” and a less restrictive regulatory backdrop. 

The full list can be found here.

— Hakyung Kim

All three major stock averages are on pace for their fifth straight winning month, and their second quarter of gains in a row.

The S&P 500 is set to finish the month 3% higher and the quarter 10% higher. This would be its best first-quarter gain since 2019.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average could gain 2% in March and 5.5% this quarter, its best first-quarter performance since 2021. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is on pace to rise 1.9% this month and 9.3% in the last three-month period.

— Lisa Kailai Han

The latest U.S. inflation data points to the Federal Reserve needing to keep rates at their current levels, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said late Wednesday.

“There is no rush to cut the policy rate,” he said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York. Recent data “tells me that it is prudent to hold this rate at its current restrictive stance perhaps for longer than previously thought to help keep inflation on a sustainable trajectory toward 2%.”

“We’re in a situation where if we ease too much or too soon, we could see inflation come back, and if we ease too late, we could do unnecessary harm to employment and people’s working lives,” he said. “We want to be careful.”

— Fred Imbert

European stocks opened higher Thursday and continued gains through early trade, with the regional Stoxx 600 index up by 0.2% at 8:40 a.m. in London.

Market movements have been muted this week, but major bourses were all in the green Thursday morning, with the U.K.’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 both up by 0.3% as Germany’s DAX rose 0.15%.

The U.K. economy fell into a recession in the second half of last year, final data published by the Office for National Statistics confirmed Thursday.

Gross domestic product fell by an unrevised 0.3% in the fourth quarter, the ONS said, following a 0.1% contraction in the third quarter.

Output declined in the final quarter of 2023 across the U.K.’s three main sectors of services, production and construction. Net trade, household consumption and gross capital formation were all lower.

— Jenni Reid

The Hang Seng tech index jumped 2.6% as tech stocks jumped, including Bilibili which surged 8.3%.

The tech index outperformed the broader Hang Seng index, which rose about 0.6%.

Bilibili reported full-year revenue of 22.53 billion yuan ($3.11 billion) in 2023 and said it was “confident” of revenue growth in 2024.

Other stocks in the sector rose including Baidu which was up 3.7%, while Tencent gained about 1%.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Japan is “very, very close” to intervening in the yen, according to Steven Englander, head of Global G10 FX research and North America macro strategy at Standard Chartered Bank.          

“I think we’re actually very, very close to them [Japanese authorities] jumping in … they’ve already discussed the political consequences and nobody’s sitting there asking for a weaker yen,” Englander told CNBC.

He said the intervention would be aimed at buying time for Japanese authorities until the U.S. Federal Reserve starts cutting interest rates or for the Bank of Japan to hike its rates a little more.    

The Japanese yen weakened 0.1% on Thursday, trading at around 151.47 against the dollar after falling to its weakest level in 34 years at 151.97 in the previous session. It prompted market speculation the government could potentially intervene to support the currency.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Cash as an asset class has commanded equity fund flows, but Barclays believes its reign could be nearing its end.

“Cash remains in favor as it is seeing the most inflows ytd, but momentum is slowing, in our view,” wrote analyst Emmanuel Cau.

In the near term, Cau believes that quarter-end rebalancing could favor bonds over stocks. Further out, rate cuts and resilient earnings fundamentals could widen the equity market rally.

“A change of market leadership away from US/Tech/Quality could provide a healthy broadening outward and may even give the bull market legs,” he added.

— Lisa Kailai Han

GE Vernova and Solventum are set to join the S&P 500 next week.

Solventum, 3M‘s health-care business, will be added to the broad market index on April 1 – the same date that it’s expected to be spun off from the multinational conglomerate. It will trade under the symbol SOLV.

GE Vernova, General Electric‘s power business, will become part of the S&P 500 on April 2. That’s the same day that it will formally be spun off from GE and trade under the ticker GEV. On that date, GE will also be renamed GE Aerospace and maintain its position in both the S&P 500 and the S&P 100.

S&P Dow Jones Indices will drop V.F. Corp and Dentsply Sirona from the broad market index, with the latter joining the S&P Midcap 400.

-Darla Mercado

Check out the stocks making headlines in extended trading:

• RH — Shares of luxury home furnishings retailer RH jumped 7% after the company said it expects its demand trends to accelerate throughout fiscal year 2024, even as it foresees business conditions to “remain challenging” until interest rates ease and the housing market bounces back. RH missed earnings and revenue expectations for the fourth quarter, however, and guided first-quarter revenue down to the low-single digits.
• MillerKnoll — The stock plunged 12.8% after falling short on third-quarter revenue estimates. The company, which makes seating products and furniture systems, reported 45 cents per share in adjusted earnings, while analysts expected 44 cents per share. Revenue came out at $872.3 million, below analysts’ expectations of $909.6 million for the quarterly period, per FactSet.
• Sprinklr — Shares added 7.6% after the software stock after the company beat fourth-quarter earnings and revenue expectations. Sprinklr reported adjusted earnings per share of 13 cents, which came out 4 cents above analysts’ forecasts, per FactSet. The company’s revenue of $194.2 million also surpassed expectations of $188.7 million.
• Verint Systems — Shares rose 5.2% after the customer engagement solutions provider beat fourth-quarter earnings per share and revenue estimates. The company posted adjusted earnings of $1.07 per share on revenue of $265.1 million, while analysts polled by FactSet had called for 97 cents per share in adjusted earnings on revenue of $262.5 million.

— Pia Singh