The S&P is flat near midday as the surge in COVID-19 cases and an uptick in weekly jobless claims compete with progress on more government aid to set the direction for the market. The White House and Republicans have reportedly come to an agreement on a fifth coronavirus relief package, clearing the way for negotiations with Democrats over the proposed $1T spending package as the government races to reach an agreement before the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., initial jobless claims rose 109,000 to 1.42M in the week ended July 18, missing expectations for a sixteenth straight weekly decline. The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 2.0% to 102.0 in June.
The latest data from the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering shows there are now 15.3M confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including nearly 4M in the U.S., and 624,370 deaths due to the disease. At the state level for some U.S. hot spots, Florida reported 389,868 COVID-19 cases, up about 10,000 cases from yesterday, while Arizona reports 152,944 COVID-19 cases, up 2,335 from the prior day.
TOP NEWS: Shares of Tesla (TSLA) are 1% lower near noon following last night's Q2 results. While several analysts have noted that the company benefited from a high amount of credit-related revenue in the quarter, Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter said it is "undeniably impressive" that the company may still exceed 500,000 deliveries in 2020. Meanwhile, Cowen analyst Jeffrey Osborne upgraded Tesla to Market Perform from Underperform, saying he "fully admits" to having been wrong on Tesla the last few years, and Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said "bears really would have to nit pick at the release to construct a materially negative narrative" to tell about the report.
Microsoft (MSFT) shares have slipped 2.5% despite better than forecast earnings and revenue, with analysts pointing to margin weakness and a slowdown in cloud growth as reasons for a pullback following the report. Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan, who estimates total cloud revenue growth slowed to 22% from 32%, downgraded Microsoft shares to Perform from Outperform following the company's June quarter results, while Credit Suisse analyst Brad Zelnick was among those on Wall Street who said he would be a buyer on weakness.
Twitter (TWTR) shares are 8% higher despite a revenue miss as the company reported better than expected 34% year-over-year growth in monetizable daily active users, or mDAU, to 186 million in the second quarter.
In other large-cap earnings news, American Airlines (AAL) is higher following its quarterly report, while Dow (DOW), AT&T (T), Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) and Las Vegas Sands (LVS) are all lower.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Whirlpool (WHR), which rose 10% after it reported better than expected Q2 results and revised its fiscal 2020 sales guidance. Also higher after reporting quarterly results were Brightcove (BCOV) and Helix Energy (HLX).
Among the notable losers was Aurinia Pharmaceuticals (AUPH), which fell 11% after its 13.333M share spot secondary priced at $15 per share. Also lower were Trinity Industries (TRN) and Citrix (CTXS), which declined after reporting quarterly results.
INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was down 78.95, or 0.29%, to 26,926.89, the Nasdaq was down 29.40, or 0.27%, to 10,676.72, and the S&P 500 was down 1.66, or 0.05%, to 3,274.36.
Tesla
-12.17 (-0.77%)
Microsoft
-5.7 (-2.69%)
+2.975 (+8.05%)
American Airlines
+0.46 (+4.05%)
AT&T
-0.44 (-1.46%)
Dow Inc.
-1.54 (-3.48%)
Chipotle
-23.36 (-1.98%)
Las Vegas Sands
-1.88 (-4.01%)
Whirlpool
+14.32 (+9.73%)
Brightcove
+3.21 (+39.68%)
Helix Energy
+0.895 (+23.46%)
Aurinia Pharmaceuticals
-1.835 (-11.01%)
Trinity Industries
-1.725 (-8.10%)
Citrix
-15.92 (-9.52%)