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Here’s what you need to know to navigate the markets today.
• U.S. stock and bond markets are closed in observance of Memorial Day on Monday. On Sunday night, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 25 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.1% and Nasdaq Composite futures increased 0.2%. This week’s earnings include:
and
on Tuesday;
NetApp,
, and
on Wednesday; and
and
on Thursday. Highlights of this week’s economic news events include: the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports its latest economic outlook on Monday, the Census Bureau reports construction spending for April on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve releases the beige book on Wednesday, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its May jobs report on Friday.
• Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Congress needs “a clear direction” when it resumes negotiations over infrastructure next week. He told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that it was “certainly encouraging” that the two sides are discussing plans, but Congress needs a clear direction by the time it returns to Washington on June 7. “The American people expect us to do something, they expect us to deliver,” he said. Senate Republicans on Thursday made a $928 billion counteroffer to President
Joe Biden’s
revised $1.7 trillion infrastructure plan, but the two sides remain divided on what the final package should include. “Especially because things we consider very important — from making sure that we’re sparking an electric vehicle revolution and that it happens in the U.S. with American workers on American soil, to the President’s commitment to make sure that we get rid of 100% of lead pipes in this country — we didn’t see as much of that in the counterproposal,” Buttigieg said, adding that the administration is getting “pretty close to a fish-or-cut-bait moment” in its negotiations. Biden is meeting this week with
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito
(R., W.Va.), the lead GOP negotiator, who told “Fox News Sunday” that “I think we are building those blocks towards a really good, solid infrastructure package that has bipartisan support… [the president] told me on the phone just the day before yesterday, ‘Let’s get this done.’”
• President Joe Biden on Saturday called Texas Senate Bill 7 “wrong and un-American,” saying Texas lawmakers are promoting a state law that “attacks the sacred right to vote.” The proposed legislation, negotiated behind closed doors over the past week, includes new provisions that limit early voting hours, restrict local voting options and tighten voting-by-mail, ban drive-through voting, and require ID for mail-in ballots, among other measures, The Texas Tribune reported. It would make it easier to overturn an election if fraudulent votes are suspected, and lowers the burden of proof for voter fraud from “clear and convincing evidence” to “preponderance of evidence,” The Houston Chronicle reported. Biden said: “It’s part of an assault on democracy that we’ve seen far too often this year—and often disproportionately targeting Black and Brown Americans” referring to similar laws passed in Georgia and Florida. “In the 21st century, we should be making it easier, not harder, for every eligible voter to vote.” He called on Congress to pass the For the People Act and the
John Lewis
Voting Rights Advancement Act.
• The number of people traveling through U.S. airports set a new pandemic record of nearly 1.96 million on Friday, the highest count so far this year, according to airport checkpoint figures logged by the Transportation Security Administration. That’s 24% less than the 2.57 million that flew through U.S. airports on May 28, 2019, but six times the 327,133 people who flew on that date in 2020. Another 1.61 million people passed through airport checkpoints on Saturday. More than 37 million Americans are expected to travel over this Memorial Day weekend, unofficially the start of summer, including 34.4 million who will take road trips, according to AAA. Gas prices on Sunday averaged $3.04 per gallon nationwide.
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