Dow Jones Futures: S&P 500 Hits Fresh Lows As Apple, Tesla, CarMax Dive, Nike

Dow Jones futures rose modestly Friday morning, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures, with Nike (NKE) and Micron Technology (MU) earnings in focus and the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge on deck.

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The stock market sold off hard Thursday, wiping out Wednesday’s gains. The S&P 500 hit fresh bear market lows. The Nasdaq composite has not quite undercut its June lows, but the big-cap Nasdaq 100 did, led by Apple stock and Tesla (TSLA).

Treasury yields rebounded somewhat Thursday, while jobless claims fell to a five-month low, something the Federal Reserve does not want to see. Apple (AAPL) and CarMax (KMX) spurred broad losses Thursday. After slashing losses Wednesday spurred by a report of scaled-down iPhone production due to lackluster demand, Apple stock sold off hard Thursday, partly on an analyst downgrade, with iPhone chipmakers also struggling.

CarMax (KMX) badly missed earnings views Thursday morning, warning of “affordability challenges.” For largely similar reasons, Moody’s downgraded its outlook for the global automotive industry to negative from stable. KMX stock crashed, sinking other auto dealers. But General Motors (GM), Ford Motor (F), Stellantis (STLA) and Tesla stock also sold off.

Tesla has a lot of news coming up. Tesla will hold its annual AI Day on Friday night. Over the weekend, Tesla will likely release Q3 delivery figures. But TSLA stock investors won’t have a chance to respond to those events until Monday morning.

Tesla on Thursday night denied a local media report that the EV giant would significantly cut Model 3 and Y prices in China. There has been growing speculation that Tesla would cut some China prices in early October.

Key Earnings

Nike earnings and sales narrowly topped fiscal first-quarter consensus. But gross margins fell significantly vs. a year earlier, mostly on liquidating excess inventory in North America. North America inventory surged 65% vs a year earlier. The Dow Jones athletic apparel giant said it will take “decisive action” to get rid of wanted wares.

NKE stock sold off 9% in extended action. Nike stock slid 3.2% in Thursday’s session to 95.52, hitting a fresh two-year low intraday.

Micron earnings slightly topped, while revenue fell short. The memory-chip giant guided significantly lower for the current fiscal first quarter. It also plans to slash wafer fab equipment spending by up to 50% in the current fiscal year vs. fiscal 2022.

MU stock was little changed in overnight trading. Micron stock fell 1.9% to 50.01 in Thursday’s session, after hitting a 23-month low last week.

Micron’s capital spending cut is bad news for memory-exposed chip-equipment giants such as Applied Materials (AMAT), KLA Corp. (KLAC) and Lam Research (LRCX). All three stocks retreated modestly in extended action.

In other news, IBM (IBM), slashed its quarterly dividend by 78% to 37 cents a share. IBM stock edged higher in overnight action.

Dow Jones Futures Today

Dow Jones futures edged up 0.3% vs. fair value. NKE stock and IBM are Dow Jones components. S&P 500 futures climbed 0.5% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.6%.

The 10-year yield dipped 4 basis points to 3.71%, reversing from modest gains Thursday…