Navitas stock soars as company advances 800V tech for NVIDIA AI platforms
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* Futures off: Dow 0.33%, S&P 0.32%, Nasdaq 0.37%
(Adds comment; updates prices)
By Devik Jain
March 25 (Reuters) - U.S. stock futures gave up early gains
on Thursday ahead of data that is likely to show a drop in
weekly jobless claims as the labor market continued to limp out
of a coronavirus-induced recession.
The Labor Department's weekly jobless claims report, the
most timely indicator of economic health, is expected to show
claims fell to 730,000 in the week ended March 20 from 770,000
in the previous week.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite .IXIC has fallen
this month as rosy economic projections lifted demand for
undervalued stocks including energy, mining and industrial
firms, but raised fears of higher inflation and a potential tax
hike.
"It's a tale of two different markets at this point and it
depends on what the market wants to focus on," said Faron Daugs,
founder and chief executive officer of Harrison Wallace
Financial Group.
"Does it want to focus on stimulus, increased vaccinations
and re-opening economies or on potential taxes, increased
regulation potentially in certain sectors, extremely high
spending and inflation."
In testimonies to Congress this week, Federal Reserve Chair
Jerome Powell expressed optimism about a strong U.S. economic
rebound, while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said future tax
hikes will be needed to pay for public investments. Economically-sensitive bank stocks including JPMorgan Chase
& Co JPM.N , Citigroup C.N , Wells Fargo WFC.N , Goldman
Sachs GS.N and Bank of America BAC.N gave up early gains to
fall between 0.1% and 0.7% in premarket trading.
Heavyweight tech stocks Facebook Inc FB.O , Google parent
Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O and Twitter Inc TWTR.N fell between
0.4% and 2.1% ahead of their chief executives' testimony before
Congress about extremism and misinformation on their services.
At 8:14 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were down 107 points,
or 0.33%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were down 12.5 points, or
0.32%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 47 points, or
0.37%.
Shares of Nike Inc NKE.N fell 4.7% as the sporting goods
giant faced a Chinese social media backlash over its comments
about reports of forced labor in Xinjiang. U.S.-listed shares of Baidu Inc BIDU.O , Alibaba Group
Holding Ltd BABA.N and JD.Com Inc JD.O were subdued after
the U.S. securities regulator adopted measures that would kick
foreign companies off stock exchanges if they do not comply with
U.S. auditing standards.