Wall Street Sets Up for Another Day of Record Highs as Futures Rise
New York (Oct 3) Stock futures set markets up to trade above record levels on Tuesday, Oct. 3, a day after th major benchmark indexes ended at all-time closing highs.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.12%, S&P 500 futures added 0.05%, and Nasdaq futures increased 0.08%.
U.S. financial markets climbed to new records on Monday, Oct. 2, despite concerns over a mass shooting in Las Vegas that officials called the worst in the country's history and President Donald Trump described as an "act of pure evil." All three benchmark indexes were at all-time highs, the S&P 500 for its third day in a row and the Nasdaq its second.
The attack in Las Vegas left 59 dead and 527 injured after a gunman opened fire on a music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino late Sunday, Oct. 1. The suspect was identified as Stephen Craig Paddock, 64 years old, of Mesquite, Nevada. Paddock had 23 guns in the room where he was found dead by officers.
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U.S. automakers, such as Ford Motor Co. ( F - Get Report) and General Motors Co. ( GM - Get Report) , will release monthly sales figures throughout the day, though this month could see spikes in demand following the destruction of Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey. Auto sales for September could reach the highest level so far in 2017 as Americans who lost cars in Hurricanes Harvey and Irma continue replacing them, according to J.D. Power and LMC Automotive.
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Investors were also looking ahead to the September jobs report on Friday, Oct. 6, in what will be the first full month in which the effects of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria on the labor market will be laid bare. Weekly jobless claims have already shown the initial impact with the number of new applications for unemployment benefits seeing an uptick in recent weeks.
"Work disruptions due to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are likely to knock down payroll growth substantially in September," Wells Fargo analysts wrote in a note. "It bears the potential to interrupt the 83 consecutive months of employment growth."
Wells Fargo expects 55,000 jobs to have been added to the U.S. economy in September. Meanwhile, economists surveyed by FactSet anticipate 75,000 jobs to have been added, a sharp slowdown from the 156,000 jobs added in August. The measure has not fallen below the 100,000 mark since March and has only been below that threshold four times in the past five years.
Lennar Corp. (LEN - Get Report) increased 2% on Tuesday morning after better-than-expected third-quarter results. The homebuilder reported earnings of $1.06 a share, up a nickel from a year earlier. Analysts anticipated earnings of a $1. Revenue of $3.26 billion came in higher than $3.24 billion consensus. Home sales rose 17% and home deliveries increased 12%.
Former Equifax Inc. ( EFX - Get Report) Chairman and CEO Richard Smith will apologize to the American people during Congressional testimony Tuesday and Wednesday for a data breach that exposed the personal data of nearly half the U.S. population. Smith is expected to be be grilled on what security measures the credit-scoring company has in place, why it waited so long to tell people about the hack and why some executives were allowed to sell shares before the news became public. Equifax said Monday that 2.5 million more U.S. customers potentially were impacted by the data breach, bringing the total to 145.5 million.
Smith is scheduled to appear before a House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on Wednesday.
•3 Key Things to Watch for During Former Equifax Chief's Congressional Testimony
Tesla Inc. ( TSLA - Get Report) declined more than 1% in premarket trading after reporting it delivered 220 Model 3s during the third quarter. CEO Elon Musk has previously boasted in August that Tesla would produce 1,500 Model 3s in just September, ramping up to 20,000 a month by December. Tesla blamed "production bottlenecks" for the slow rollout. But it said it was confident it could fix those issues.
Tesla said overall it delivered 26,150 vehicles in the third quarter, up 4.5% from a year earlier, and logged a personal best for sales of the Model S and Model X.
•Tesla Just Embarrassed Itself By Badly Whiffing On Its Model 3 Goals
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