US OPEN: S&P 500 and Nasdaq open higher after yesterday's sell-off

• Wall Street indices open slightly higher
• US100 defends lower limit of local geometry
• Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan reported Q2 earnings today
• AT&T drops after disclosing massive data hack

Wall Street indices launched today's trading slightly higher - S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained 0.1% at session open, Dow Jones moved 0.2% higher, while small-cap Russell 2000 jumped 1%.

Higher-than-expected PPI inflation data released today triggered a pullback on US index futures, but those declines were short-lived. There is one more release scheduled from US today - University of Michigan flash data for July at 3:00 pm BST. Market expects a slight improvement in headline consumer sentiment index.

Source: xStation5

Tech sector was a top laggard on Wall Street yesterday, with Nasdaq and Nasdaq-100 suffering deep declines amid rotation towards small-cap stocks. Taking a look at Nasdaq-100 futures (US100) chart at H1 interval, we can see that the index climbed to almost 21,000 pts yesterday after release of US CPI data for June, but has quickly turned lower later on. US100 slumped and reached an important support zone, ranging below 20,365 pts mark. This area is marked with previous price reactions, the lower limit of local market geometry and 50% retracement of the upward impulse launched on June 24, 2024. So far, it looks like bulls have defended the area, which signals that the uptrend is still in play.

Company News

Investors were offered the first batch of Q2 earnings reports from US banks before the Wall Street session open today. Among major banks reporting earnings today were JPMorgan (JPM.US), Wells Fargo (WFC.US) and Citigroup (C.US). Wells Fargo slumped as net interest income missed expectations, JPMorgan opened a touch lower amid an over-$800 million reserve build, while Citigroup is trading a touch higher.

AT&T (T.US) launched today's trading lower after the company said that it has fallen victim of a massive hack of customer data. Company said that it believes data has accessed company's networks via a third-party cloud platform and exfiltrated data on calls and texts made in May-October 2022 period, as well as data from January 2, 2023. Snowflake (SNOW.US) has been named as an involved third-party cloud platform and its shares also plunged today.

Fastenal (FAST.US) gains after reporting Q2 2024 results today ahead of session open. Company reported a 1.8% YoY increase in Q2 revenue to $1.92 billion (exp. $1.92 billion) as well as a 2% YoY drop in operating income to $386.9 million (exp. $390.5 million). Gross margin ticked lower from 45.5% in Q2 2023 to 45.1% now (exp. 45.1%), while operating margin deteriorated from 21.0% in Q3 2023 to 20.2% now (exp. 20.3%). Fastenal reported EPS of $0.51 - in-line with market expectations, but slightly lower than $0.52 reported in a year ago quarter.

Analysts' actions

• Array Technologies (ARRY.US) upgraded to 'buy' at Citi. Price target set at $14.00
• Tesla (TSLA.US) downgraded to 'sell' at UBS. Price target set at $197.00

AT&T (T.US) launched today's trading lower after disclosing that it fell a victim to a massive data hack. However, scale of the drop is rather moderate, suggesting that markets do not expect it to have a major impact on company's financials. Key near-term levels to watch can be found in the $18.00 area (support) and $19.40 area (resistance). Source: xStation5