US OPEN: Lack of debt ceiling agreement continues to pressure Wall Street

• Wall Street launched today's trading lower
• FOMC minutes and NVIDIA earnings in the spotlight
• Still no progress on US debt ceiling

Wall Street indices launched today's trading lower with markets starting to grow nervous amid lack of progress in US debt ceiling talks. Agreement on the US debt ceiling still has not been reached. While both sides are saying that talks are progressing, lack of agreement says otherwise. Also, House Speaker McCarthy said today that he has not spoken with President Biden since Monday, suggesting that staff-level talks have not progressed to the point where meeting of top figures would be needed.

FOMC minutes at 7:00 pm BST is a key remaining macro event of the day. Document will relate to May 2-3 meeting that saw wording of the statement suggest rate hike cycle may have been paused. Tech traders should also keep in mind that NVIDIA (NVDA.US) is set to release earnings after the close of the market session and they may have a big impact on sentiment towards the whole tech sector.

Source: xStation5

Nasdaq-100 (US100) is pulling back today, just like other Wall Street indices. Taking a look at the chart at D1 interval, we can see that the index is attempting to break back below a recently-broken resistance zone, marked with the 50% retracement of the downward move launched in late-2022. Index may become more volatile in the evening as FOMC minutes will be released at 7:00 pm BST and NVIDIA will report earnings after market close.

Company News

Agilent (A.US) drops after reporting earnings for fiscal-Q2 2023 (February-April 2023) yesterday after the close of the Wall Street session. Company reported adjusted EPS at $1.27 (exp. $1.26) and net revenue at $1.72 billion (exp. $1.67 billion). All three major segments of the company - Life sciences and applied markets, Diagnostics and Genomics as well as Agilent Crosslab - reported slightly better revenue than expected. However, drop in company's stock is driven by disappointing forecasts. Agilent expects adjusted EPS in full fiscal-2023 (November 2022 - October 2023) to come in at $5.60-5.65, down from a previous forecast of $5.65-5.70, while revenue is expected to reach $6.93-7.03 billion, down from a previous forecast of $7.03-7.10 billion.

Share price of Agilent (A.US) slumped today, following earnings release. Stock dropped to the lowest level since July 2022 and tested support zone marked with mid-2022 lows. Source: xStation5

Analog Devices (ADI.US) trades lower after fiscal-Q2 2023 (February-April 2023) today ahead of the Wall Street open. Company reported adjusted EPS at $2.83 (exp. $2.76) while revenue reached $3.26 billion (exp. $3.20 billion). Industrial and Communications revenue came in-line with expectations while beat in automotive revenue managed to offset miss in consumer revenue. Analog Devices expects fiscal-Q3 adjusted EPS to reach $2.42-2.62 (exp. $2.64) and revenue to come in at $3.00-3.20 billion (exp. $3.15 billion)

Citigroup (C.US) said that it plans to resume share buybacks during the current quarter. Stock repurchases will be 'modest'. Citigroup also said that it has abandoned plans to sell it Banamex - a Mexican bank involved in consumer, small business and middle market banking - and instead will pursue an IPO of the unit. Banamex was purchased by Citigroup in August 2001 for $12.5 billion.

Analog Devices (ADI.US) launched today's cash trading with a big bearish price gap, dropping below $179.00 support zone. Drop was halted at the support zone ranging between $170 mark and 200-session moving average (purple line), and stock started to recover later on. Source: xStation5