Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:
1. April showers
Stocks tumbled on Tuesday to close out a losing month for all three major indexes. The S&P 500 fell 1.57% on the day while the Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 2.04% and 1.49%, respectively. The Dow lost 5% in April, its worst monthly performance since September 2022. The S&P 500 shed about 4.2% for the month and the Nasdaq lost 4.4%. Despite ending a five-month winning streak, the S&P 500 is up more than 20% from its low in October. Follow live market updates.
2. Amazing growth
Pascal Rossignol | Reuters
Amazon shares are up about 2% in the premarket after the company reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the quarter on Tuesday. Operating income soared to $15.3 billion, up more than 200% compared with a year ago. Net income also more than tripled to $10.4 billion. Advertising revenue accelerated 24% for the quarter, outpacing retail and cloud computing. Sales at Amazon Web Services grew 17%, topping estimates. The earnings growth comes after the company initiated widespread cost-cutting, tweaked its fulfillment operations and stabilized cloud spending.
3. Holding pattern
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on interest rate policy in Washington, U.S., March 20, 2024.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
Don’t expect any fireworks as the Federal Reserve closes its meeting today. Traders anticipate a near-zero chance that the FOMC will announce any interest rate changes. That would keep the key overnight borrowing rate at a range targeted between 5.25%-5.5%. “With maybe one or two exceptions, policymakers pretty universally agree that the last few months of inflation data are too warm to justify action in the near term. But they’re still hopeful that they will be in a position to cut rates later,” said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. The Fed is expected to make one piece of news, that they will reduce the level at which it is running down the bond holdings on its balance sheet.
4. Missing targets
Starbucks Coffee shop in Krakow, Poland on February 29, 2024.
Beata Zawrzel | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Shares of Starbucks are down about 12% in the premarket on weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue. Same-store sales declined 4% and traffic to its cafes fell 6% in the quarter. Same-store sales plunged 11% in China, the coffee chain’s second-largest market. “In a highly challenged environment, this quarter’s results do not reflect the power of our brand, our capabilities or the opportunities ahead,” CEO Laxman Narasimhan said in a statement Tuesday. Starbucks also predicted its cafes would keep underperforming and slashed its fiscal 2024 earnings and revenue forecast.
5. Settling
Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday it will pay $6.5 billion to settle almost all of the lawsuits claiming its talc-based products caused ovarian cancer. Under the deal, J&J will resolve the thousands of lawsuits through a third bankruptcy filing of a subsidiary company. The news begins a three-month voting period for claimants to reach a consensus. The remaining pending litigation relates to a rare cancer called mesothelioma and will be addressed separately.
— CNBC’s Brian Evans, Sarah Min, Annie Palmer, Jeff Cox, Amelia Lucas and Annika Kim Constantino contributed to this report.
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