Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures steady as Wall Street cements in rate-cut hopes

Salesforce (CRM) stock took a leg higher in premarket on the company’s third quarter earnings beat and improved outlook.

The software giant reported third quarter diluted earnings per share of $3.25, beating estimates of $2.58 per share, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Revenue of $10.27 billion rose 8.6% year over year and was roughly in line with estimates.

Reuters reports:

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Five Below (FIVE) shares rose early on Thursday as it became the latest value retailer to benefit from consumers’ shift toward more value-oriented purchases, as high-income shoppers drive traffic at dollar stores and other bargain outlets.

“We’ve seen really nice traffic growth and growth in both new customers as well as retention,” Five Below CEO Winnie Park said on the company’s earnings call. “What’s really worked in terms of growth is an expansion of the idea of what value looks like. We still curate a great assortment — roughly 80% of the assortment is $5 and below — but we took a lot of attention to those items above $5 and specifically packing a ton of value at $7, $10, $15.”

Net sales increased 23.1% year over year to $1 billion in the third quarter, surpassing estimates of $983 million, per S&P Global Market Intelligence. Same-store sales rose by 12.4% year over year.

Earnings per share reached $0.66, beating estimates for $0.26 per share, sending the stock 4% higher in after-hours trading.

Five Below also raised its full-year sales outlook to a range of $4.62 billion to $4.65 billion. The company also raised its forecast for diluted income per share to a range of $5.51 to $5.69 from $4.56 to $4.96 previously.

For the fourth quarter, net sales are expected to be in the range of $1.58 billion to $1.61 billion.

The Financial Times reports:

Bond investors have told the US Treasury they are concerned about Kevin Hassett’s potential appointment as Federal Reserve chair, worrying he will cut interest rates aggressively to please President Donald Trump.

The Treasury department solicited feedback on Hassett and other candidates in one-on-one conversations with executives at major Wall Street banks, asset management giants and other big players in the US debt market, according to several people familiar with the conversations.

… The doubts among market participants about Hassett reflect a broader anxiety on Wall Street about the transition at the Fed’s helm as Trump prepares to nominate a new leader of the central bank. Some senior bond market participants would have preferred other candidates such as BlackRock’s Rick Rieder and Fed governor Christopher Waller who were seen as more independent from Trump than Hassett.

Several of the market participants the Treasury contacted said they were worried about Hassett’s alignment with Trump, who has insisted rates should be cut sharply and has called Powell a “stubborn mule” for the central bank’s decision to only modestly lower borrowing costs this year.

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Snowflake (SNOW) stock tumbled after the AI data cloud provider reported a narrower-than-expected loss but issued guidance that fell short of the Street’s estimates. The company also announced it expanded its partnership with Anthropic (ANTH.PVT).

Snowflake shares fell 8% in pre-market trading on Thursday.

The Montana-based company reported on Wednesday that revenue grew 29% year over year to $1.15 billion during the quarter, slightly missing Wall Street’s estimates of $1.18 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Snowflake reported a net loss per share of $0.87, a smaller loss than the $0.96 per share analysts were expecting.

For the fourth quarter, Snowflake guided for product revenue between $1.19 billion and $1.2 billion, which was slightly below the midpoint revenue forecast by the Street of $1.23 billion. The full-year revenue guidance of $4.44 billion also fell below expectations of $4.6 billion.

Snowflake also announced a multiyear, $200 million agreement with Anthropic that will make Anthropic’s Claude AI models available on the Snowflake platform and establish a joint venture to deploy AI agents across the world’s largest enterprises.

The deal deepens Snowflake’s relationship with Anthropic, as the company has already processed trillions of Claude tokens on its platform.

“Enterprises have spent years building secure, trusted data environments, and now they want AI that can work within those environments without compromise,” Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei said in a statement. “This partnership brings Claude directly into Snowflake, where that data already lives. It’s a meaningful step toward making frontier AI genuinely useful for businesses.”

Reuters reports:

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Bloomberg reports:

Oil held a gain as investors weighed the outlook for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the fallout from tensions between the US and Venezuela.

Brent (BZ=F) traded below $63 a barrel after climbing 0.4% on Wednesday, while West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) was near $59. US President Donald Trump said a meeting between his envoy and President Vladimir Putin was “reasonably good” but acknowledged the outcome for a peace deal was uncertain.

Separately, Trump reiterated the US will start striking drug cartels on land in Venezuela very soon. American forces have been massing in the region, with the situation adding some risk premium to oil prices, partially offsetting concerns around a surplus that’s expected to swell to a record next year.

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