US stock futures climb, as Trump Media and Tesla surge in early trading
Richard A. Brooks via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As former President Donald Trump declared victory in the U.S. presidential election early Wednesday, shares of his media company, Trump Media & Technology, surged about 34% to about $45.49 in pre-market trading.
With U.S. markets yet to open, early indicators appeared to show Wall Street’s bullish view of a second term for Trump. As votes were still being, Dow futures were up, the U.S. dollar was strengthening and international markets were mixed.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures had surged about 2.9% by 6 a.m. in New York, having risen briskly from the 1.7% gain they had logged when former President Donald Trump took the stage in Florida at about 2 a.m.
S&P 500 futures traded up about 2.2% early Wednesday, while futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq market were up about 1.7%. Shares of Tesla, the electric-vehicle company headed by Trump ally Elon Musk, spiked about 14.5% in pre-market trades.
Trump owns a 57% stake in the Trump Media, which trades under the DJT ticker and is the parent of social media startup Truth Social. The company late Tuesday reported its third quarterly loss since going public in March.
Markets in the U.S. had surged on Tuesday, led by the Nasdaq’s 1.4% rise.
As Trump walked onto the stage in Florida early Wednesday, the dollar was strengthening. The U.S. Dollar Index traded up about 1.4% at 104.75, touching a level it hadn’t seen since early August. Yields on 10-year and 2-year Treasury bonds had also climbed overnight.
Trading in Asia was mixed Wednesday as international markets digested the election results. Japan’s Nikkei closed up 2.61% for the day, while Shanghai closed nearly flat, slipping just 0.09%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell, dropping 2.23% by the close after opening below Tuesday’s close.
The United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 Index climbed early Wednesday, rising about 1.43% moments after open. Germany’s DAX saw a similar rise, climbing about 1.3% in morning trading.
(NEW YORK) — 7-Eleven will close more than 400 of its “underperforming stores” across the U.S. and Canada in an effort to reduce costs and bolster earnings before the end of the year.
Seven & I Holdings, the Tokyo-based parent company of the convenience store chain, announced the news during an earnings call last week, saying 444 stores will be shuttered due to the cumulative factors of inflation, slower customer traffic, and declining cigarette sales.
“All of these have impacted our sales and merchandise gross profit,” the CEO and President Joe DePinto said on the call.
As a result of the “macroeconomic conditions and evolving industry trends,” DePinto added that the company has revised its earning guidance.
The company reported a 7.3% decline in store traffic back in August and and said during its latest earnings reporting that the pattern corresponds with the “pullback of the middle- and low-income consumer.”
The total number of closures accounts for just over 3% of the more than 13,000 7-Eleven stores in North America.
Amazon workers in New York striking Thursday morning. Image via WABC.
(NEW YORK) — The Teamsters said workers will begin striking at Amazon facilities across the country Thursday morning — in what the union calls the largest strike against the online shopping giant less than a week before Christmas.
The Teamsters said the strike will begin early Thursday at several facilities, including in New York City, Atlanta, three locations in Southern California, one in San Francisco and one in Skokie, Illinois.
In addition, the Teamsters said local unions would also put up primary picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers nationwide.
In a news release, the union calls it the “largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history” and says it comes after Amazon has refused to bargain with workers organized with the Teamsters.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien in a statement. “We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it.”
In a statement to ABC News, an Amazon spokesperson said the Teamsters have illegally coerced workers to join the union.
“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said. “The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.”
The spokesperson said the company has increased the starting minimum wage for workers in fulfillment centers and transportation employees by 20% and in September increased average base wage to $22 per hour.
The announced strike by the Teamsters comes after workers at several Amazon facilities authorized the walkout.
The Teamsters said nearly 10,000 Amazon workers across the country have joined the union.
The facility in New York City’s Staten Island was Amazon’s first-ever unionized warehouse. Workers there have said the company has refused to recognize the union and negotiate a contract after workers there voted to unionize in 2022.
The National Labor Relations Board officially certified the union representing workers at the facility, but Amazon has appealed that ruling.
(NEW YORK) — The price of bitcoin topped $100,000 for the first time ever late Wednesday, and soared to a fresh high in early trading on Thursday.
The new gains extended a rally set off by the election of former President Donald Trump, who is viewed as friendly toward cryptocurrency.
In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump took credit for the gains: “CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!! $100,000!!! YOU’RE WELCOME!!!.”
Since Election Day, the price of bitcoin has climbed nearly 50%. That performance far outpaces the S&P 500, which has risen about 5% over the same period.
But the breakneck pace of bitcoin’s growth poses a quandary for investors: Is it too late to buy into the rally, or will the good times continue to roll?
Investment analysts who spoke with ABC News gave reason to be optimistic about further gains, citing expectations of a friendly regulatory environment under Trump and continued interest rate cuts at the Federal Reserve.
The surge of momentum alone may pull investors from the sidelines, propelling the price of bitcoin higher, they added.
Analysts, however, warned that bitcoin remains a highly volatile asset, making it all but impossible to predict where its price will go next.
“Bitcoin clearly has some things going in its favor,” said Mark Hamrick, Washington bureau chief and senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com.
“The problem with bitcoin is that it’s unclear what drives the underlying fundamentals of the asset,” Hamrick added. “If somebody were to ask me where bitcoin is going in the next week, month or year, I have no idea.”
At least for now, bitcoin is on a tear. The latest surge coincided with a piece of good news for the crypto industry: Trump’s nomination on Wednesday of Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Atkins, the CEO of consulting firm Patomak Partners, serves as co-chair of the Token Alliance, a cryptocurrency advocacy organization.
Once a crypto critic, Trump has vowed to bolster the cryptocurrency sector and ease regulations enforced by the Biden administration. Trump has also promised to establish the federal government’s first National Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
The positive developments for crypto extend well beyond Trump. In recent months, the Fed has cut interest rates and forecasted additional rate cuts to come. In theory, lower rates could ease consumer borrowing costs and drive more investment in bitcoin.
Strong performance this year has also been driven by U.S. approval in January of bitcoin ETFs, or exchange-traded funds. Bitcoin ETFs allow investors to buy into an asset that tracks the price movement of bitcoin, while avoiding the inconvenience and risk of purchasing the crypto coin itself.
Bret Kenwell, U.S. investment analyst at eToro, said those favorable conditions for bitcoin are likely to persist.
“Those same catalysts have the longer-term picture still looking bright for bitcoin,” Kenwell told ABC News in a statement.
Still, experts offered up warnings about the volatility of bitcoin. Even amid its meteoric rise this year, bitcoin experienced a temporary downswing that slashed one-third of its value, Kenwell noted.
As recently as 2021, bitcoin suffered a downturn that cut its value in half. The same thing happened a year earlier, when the initial outset of the pandemic triggered a panic among investors.
Bitcoin has proven sensitive to negative developments for crypto and the wider market in part because it is difficult to peg the value of the asset, Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, told ABC News.
Stock investors typically assess the value of a company’s shares by evaluating its service or product. Since bitcoin isn’t currently used as anything besides a store of value, the lack of a clear utility leaves little basis for assessing bitcoin’s value, which contributes to its volatile price movements, Sosnick added.
“Bitcoin isn’t really used in the real world,” Sosnick said, noting the asset could still move higher nevertheless.
“Right now, the public is very enamored with bitcoin,” Sosnick said. “It’s foolish to say that any number – whether it’s $75,000 or $100,000 or anything – is the end of the rise.”
