US OPEN: Wall Street ignores weak PMIs and Evergrande concerns

• US indices trade higher

• US30 breaks above number of important resistance levels

• Salesforce and Darden Restaurants jump on full-year forecast boosts

Worrying news on Evergrande and lacklustre US PMIs today as well as hawkish Fed meeting yesterday did not manage to derail market sentiment. Indices around the world move higher today with most major benchmarks from the Old Continent trading over 1% higher on the day. Indices from Wall Street also perform well - Dow Jones and S&P 500 gain 1% while Nasdaq trades 0.9% higher. 

Source: xStation5

In spite of a rather hawkish message sent by Fed yesterday, stocks around the world are continuing to recover from recent Evergrande-related sell-off. A look at Dow Jones chart (US30) shows that US blue-chips index managed to break above a number of important resistance levels today. Index broke above the downward trendline and subsequent rally pushed it above the 200-hour moving average (purple line) and resistance zone marked with 50% retracement of a recent drop (34,500 pts area). The near-term levels to watch in case upward move continues can be found near next Fibonacci retracement levels - 61.8% retracement at 34,725 pts and 78.6% retracement that can be found slightly above 35,000 pts mark.. 

Company News

BlackBerry (BB.US) reported earnings for the fiscal Q2 2022 (ended on August 31, 2021). Company reported a 34% YoY drop in adjusted revenue, to $175 million (exp. $166.8 million). Adjusted loss per share stood at $0.06, down from a profit of $0.11 per share a year ago (exp. -$0.066). Adjusted gross margin dropped from 78% in fiscal Q2 2021 to 64.6% now - in-line with estimates. A solid beat in revenue provided a boost for BlackBerry shares that trade over 5% higher at the beginning of Wall Street trading.

Darden Restaurants (DRI.US) is one of the best performing S&P 500 members at the beginning of today's session on Wall Street. Gains on the stock are fuelled by a boost to full-year 2022 forecast (June 2021 - May 2022). Company expects comparable sales to grow 27-30%, up from a previous forecast of 25-29%, and reach $9.4-9.6 billion. EBITDA is expected to come in at $1.54-1.60 billion, up from $1.50-1.59 billion, and EPS from continuing operations is seen at $7.25-7.40.

Salesforce (CRM.US) boosted its full-year forecast for fiscal-2022 (February 2021 - January 2022). Company expects revenue to reach $26.25-26.35 billion, up from the previous forecast of $26 billion. Moreover, the US company expects fiscal-2023 sales to reach $31.65-31.80 billion.

Salesforce (CRM.US) launched today's session with a big bullish price gap. Investors welcomed boosted forecasts and pushed the stock off the lower limit of the upward channel. However, continuation of the upward move will depend on whether the stock manages to clear a $270 resistance zone that halted the upward move at the turn of August and September 2021. Source: xStation5