US index futures are in the green again this morning. S&P futures are up 0.1% building on yesterday’s record close, NASDAQ futures are up 0.3% building on yesterday’s 1.0% gain and Dow futures are flat. In Europe the FTSE is up 0.5% while the Dax is flat.
The long-awaited Q1 earnings season kicks off at last this morning with positive results from Goldman Sachs who crushed analyst estimates on both EPS ($18.60 vs street $10.22) and revenues ($17.7B vs street $12.6B). JPMorgan Chase also beat the street on EPS ($3.22 vs street $3.10) and sales ($33.1B vs street $30.5B) and also booked $5.2B from the release of capital reserves that had been tied up in unneeded loan loss provisions.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase makes its market debut today through a direct listing. Since there is no Initial Public Offering, the NASDAQ has assigned it a reference price of $250.00 per share to start from which gives the company a value of about $65 billion. Bitcoin is up 2.2% trading just below $65.000 this morning.
Commodities are climbing today with copper up 1.4% and WTI crude oil up 1.5%. Oil is benefitting from a 3.6 mmbbl drawdown in API US oil inventories last night. DOE weekly inventories are due at 10:30 am EDT today with the street expecting a 2.8 mmbbl drawdown.
In a sign that the boom in business for stay-at-home companies who benefitted from last year’s lockdowns may be slowing, home retailer Bed Bath and Beyond reported mixed results. Q4 sales were down 16% from a year earlier, impacted by store closures despite a same store sales gain of 4% and an 86% jump in online sales. Sales were slightly below expectations ($2.62B vs street $2.63B), while EPS beat the street ($0.40 vs street $0.31). BBBY shares are down 8.0% premarket today.
