US stock futures were muted Thursday morning as markets were set to close a fruitful first quarter of 2024.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 (^GSPC), the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) all hovered around the flatline. The benchmark S&P set its latest record close of the year on Wednesday, while the Dow surged nearly 500 points.
With markets closed for the Good Friday holiday, Thursday will mark the final trading session of the quarter. It’s been a banner one for Wall Street: Both the S&P and Nasdaq are up around 10% so far this year.
What largely started as a megacap-driven rally has shown signs of broadening. Wall Street firms almost can’t keep pace with the S&P’s surge and have continued to move up their year-end price targets. And history suggests the momentum could continue.
A final reading on fourth-quarter GDP released on Thursday morning showed the US economy grew at a rate of 3.4% versus a prior estimate of 3.2%. On the employment front, initial jobless claims for last week came in at 210,000, versus estimates for 212,000.
Though Wall Street is closed Friday, investors will be watching for the main data event of the week: the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, which contains the Federal Reserve’s preferred “core” PCE inflation measure.
Live2 updates
March has been a solid month for the S&P 500 (^GSPC) — and an even better one for oil- and gas-related stocks.
As the month draws to a close, energy has emerged as the top-performing sector. The S&P 500 Energy Select ETF (XLE), which includes oil giants like ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), and ConocoPhillips (COP), has gained more than 9% compared to the benchmark index’s rise of nearly 3% in the same period.
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Yahoo Finance just dropped its latest Lead This Way episode, this with General Motors (GM) long-time chair and CEO Mary Barra. Full watch here.
It was really a great treat for me to spend a day with Barra touring an EV manufacturing facility in Detroit. The complexity of making electric vehicles at scale is something I don’t think most auto investors appreciate (which explains why Fisker is probably going out of business and Lucid just needed a capital infusion) – I know I didn’t fully grasp it.
A couple of takeaways from my time with Mary:
It’s not easy for a legacy automaker to suddenly make lots of electric cars! In part, this is why the Big 3 has been under-earning during the EV transition the past few years.
It’s worthwhile to spend some time on Yahoo Finance and study the valuation on GM. You can do that here. A basic numbers crunch suggests the stock is simply too cheap, provided more EV curveballs aren’t thrown the way of the auto industry.
Mary Barra remains the right leader for this pivotal time for GM. I don’t envision her leaving anytime soon, and that’s a good thing.
