US open: Stocks extend losses following OPEC meeting

dl exchange place wall st street pl new york city nyc ny nyse stock exchange dow jones sp nasdaq finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america — Exchange PlaceSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks were in the red early on Thursday, extending this week's losses at the bell.

As of 1530 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.73% at 32,573.56, while the S&P 500 was 0.43% weaker at 4,083.48 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.04% softer at 11,989.89.

The Dow Jones opened 239.67 points lower on Thursday after OPEC and its oil-producing allies agreed to hike output in July and August by a larger-than-expected amount as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to create chaos in global energy markets.

OPEC+ stated it will increase production by 648,000 barrels a day in both July and August, bringing forward the end of the historic output cuts OPEC+ implemented during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. WTI crude and Brent futures were 0.78% and 0.51% higher, respectively.

Also drawing an amount of investor attention were comments from Lael Brainard, with the Federal Reserve vice chair saying it was hard to see the case for the central bank pausing rate hikes.

On the macro front, US-based firms announced plans to cut 20,712 jobs in May, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the lowest reading in three months and 15.8% lower than the 24,586 cuts announced in May 2021. So far in 2022, employers announced plans to cut 100,694 jobs - the lowest on record for the first five months of the year.

Elsewhere, private businesses in the US hired 128,000 workers in May of 2022, according to Automatic Data Processing, the lowest level seen since 2020 and well and truly short of forecasts for a reading of 300,000.

Still on data, the Labor Department revealed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell by 11,000 to 200,000 in the week ended 28 May, down from the previous week's revised level of 211,000 to beat market expectations of 210,000.

Finally, US factory orders increased 0.2% month-on-month to $533.2bn in April, following a downwardly revised 1.8% gain in March to miss market expectations for a 0.7% rise. According to the Census Bureau, orders slowed in industries producing both durables, up 0.5% on the previous month, and nondurable goods, up 0.2% month-on-month.

In the corporate space, shares in software giant Microsoft were almost 2% lower in early trading after warning that both quarterly revenue and earnings would fall short of analysts’ estimates.

Hormel Foods lowered the top end of its full-year earnings guidance despite seeing record quarterly sales and double-digit earnings growth, while Designer Brands beat Wall Street expectations with its first-quarter adjusted earnings of $0.48 per share on revenues of $830.5m and net income of $26.2m.

Still to come, Lululemon Athletica will report earnings after the close.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Boeing Co. (BA) $135.98 4.08%
Visa Inc. (V) $214.38 2.12%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $179.78 2.11%
Nike Inc. (NKE) $120.56 1.58%
American Express Co. (AXP) $167.78 1.22%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $219.25 0.77%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $298.83 0.55%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $45.47 0.52%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $44.33 0.50%
Dowdupont Inc. (DWDP) $30.52 0.00%