Stock futures are slightly higher as Wall Street tries to recover from back-to-back losses: Live updates

Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge noted that a recent sell-off in U.S. Treasurys might have gone too far.

“Treasury yields continue to push higher, undermining investor confidence, but we continue to think the slump in bonds is overdone,” he wrote in a note Thursday. This is due to “our view that people are too nervous about a reacceleration of inflation and too upbeat on a material reacceleration in growth.”

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose 5 basis points Thursday, and it’s up roughly 50 basis points over the past month.

— Fred Imbert, Michael Bloom

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index dropped 0.4% in early trade, with construction and material stocks shedding 0.8% to lead losses while miners bucked the general downward trend to add 0.8%.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Australia climbed to 3.7% in July, up from the 3.5% seen in June and higher than the 3.6% expected by economists polled by Reuters.

The employment to population ratio decreased to 64.3%, and participation rate also fell to 66.7%.

The employment rate has been listed by the Reserve Bank of Australia as one of the key metrics that it will consider in its monetary policy decisions.

— Lim Hui Jie

China’s Premier Li Qiang said Wednesday the country would work to achieve its economic targets for the year, according to an official readout.

His remarks came a day after China reported disappointing data for July, prompting some economists to warn of rising downside risks to the country’s gross domestic target of around 5% growth.

Speaking during a State Council meeting Wednesday, Li also said efforts should be made to “organically combine” security with development — in the context of promoting business overall. That’s according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese readout.

— Evelyn Cheng

Japan’s trade balance slipped into deficit territory in July, a month after after recording its first surplus in about two years in June.

The country’s July trade deficit stood at 78.7 billion yen, reversing a 43 billion yen surplus in June and lower than the 24.2 billion surplus expected from a Reuters poll of economists.

However, July’s deficit was 94.5% lower compared to the 1.42 trillion yen deficit recorded in July 2022.

Japan’s exports fell 0.3% year on year, while imports saw a 13.5% drop compared to the same period last year.

— Lim Hui Jie

Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, sees more weakness ahead as the market undergoes a “much-needed” digestion of recent gains.

He expects the S&P 500 to drop to a 4,200 point level in a pullback that could last until the end of September, close to when the next Federal Reserve meeting is set to occur. With stocks losing their momentum and valuations becoming less extreme, Stovall expects investors to look toward the fourth quarter as the end of this “earnings recession.”

“I think that investors are responding to not to what the earnings did, but what happened below the surface, that there was a shortfall in sales, and that companies were offering moderated guidance going forward,” Stovall said. “I think that’s the concern. Will the the consumer eventually be tapped out? Is this, in a sense, an indication that the U.S. economy is indeed slowing?”

This will be the 55th quarter of the last 57 quarters in which actual results exceeded end-of-quarter estimates, Stovall said, adding that while companies’ earnings can be managed, their sales can’t be.

— Pia Singh

Check out the companies making headlines in after hours trading:

• Cisco Systems — Shares of the computer networking giant gained about 2% after posting fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations. The company posted adjusted earnings of $1.14 per share, while analysts had forecast $1.06 per share, according to Refinitiv. Revenue came out to $15.2 billion, exceeding expectations of $15.05 billion.
• VinFast Auto — Shares of the Vietnamese electric vehicle maker fell about 2%. Its shares jumped more than 250% Tuesday after VinFast went public through a SPAC deal, but the stock gave back some of those gains Wednesday and dipped 18.7%.
• Wolfspeed — Shares plunged 14% after hours following Wolfspeed’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report, which missed expectations on the bottom line. The company posted an adjusted loss of 42 cents per share, while analysts called for a loss of 20 cents per share. Wolfspeed reported $236 million in revenue, however, surpassing analysts’ expectations of $223 million, according to Refinitiv.

Read the full list here.

— Pia Singh