It’s looking like a modestly higher open for stocks following more debt-ceiling progress, and as focus turns to big jobs data and how that might affect Fed policy.
Chatter is also building on the hefty debt raising the Treasury will have to do quickly once a deal goes through. MarketWatch’s Bill Watts deftly explains how that might threaten stocks. Companies with cash-rich balance sheets also saw far better first-quarter results, while highly geared companies — those with higher leverage that could be at risk from financial troubles if profits fall or rates rise — have seen the biggest underperformance and likely will be hit by rising debt costs, said Peramunetilleke.
Peramunetilleke offered up a list of “cash-rich” U.S. companies set to benefit from higher cash rates. In the top ten: Activision Blizzard ATVI , ServiceNow NOW , General Electric GE , Amazon AMZN , Fortinet FTNT , Airbnb ABNB , VMWare VMW , Keysight Tech KEYS , Bruker BRKR and Costco COST . The buzz The House of Representatives voted heavily in favor of a crucial debt-ceiling bill on Wednesday night, keeping things on track for Monday’s deadline. The bill now heads to the Senate before it can get signed into law by President Biden.
On the tech side, AI group C3.ai shares AI are off 20% on a disappointing revenue forecast, while disappointing outlooks are hitting shares of cybersecurity group CrowdStrike CRWD and software management group Okta OKTA , down 15% and 10%, respectively. But forecast-beating results from cloud-software group Veeva Systems VEEV and storage software group Pure Storage PSTG are lifting those respective shares by 6% each.