Stock market today: Live updates

Shares of Tesla were down 6% in midday trading after Bloomberg News reported that the automaker is bumping back its robotaxi event to October from August.

The report, citing sources familiar with the decision, said that the delay was to give Tesla employees more time to build vehicle prototypes.

Autonomous driving and robotaxis are a key part of the long-term case for Tesla, which trades at higher valuations than legacy automakers. For years, CEO Elon Musk has touted this as a major potential growth area for the company.

Tesla’s stock has been red hot recently, but Thursday’s drop threatens to snap an 11-day winning streak.

— Jesse Pound

Real estate stocks in the S&P 500 tracked for their best day in several months months.

The sector added about 2.8% Thursday. If that holds through session close, it would mark its best day since March 27, when the sector climbed 2.42%.

SBA Communications and BXP led the sector higher with gains of more than 4%. Every stock in the sector was trading in the green.

With that jump, real estate was the best performing sector of the 11 that comprise the broad S&P 500. Utilities followed with an advance of around 1.3%.

— Alex Harring

Easing inflation in June solidified the case for the Federal Reserve to begin cutting interest rates later this year.

Hopes of lower rates helped propel housing-related stocks higher on Thursday morning. Shares of Home Depot, Lowe’s and D. R. Horton respectively added 2%, 3% and nearly 5%. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders exchange-traded fund also gained nearly 4%.

Thursday morning’s trio of earnings extends the trend from the flurry of early reporters ahead of the meaty part of earnings season.

All three companies that reported this morning – PepsiCo, Conagra and Delta Air Lines – all missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations. Currently, almost 60% of the nearly two dozen companies that have already reported results early in this season have missed revenue estimates. Nike, General Mills, J.M. Smucker, Oracle and CarMax were some of the other notable revenue misses in recent weeks.

Consumers have cut back on snacking, and those volume declines hurt food makers’ top lines. PepsiCo posted a revenue miss for just the second time in 6 years, while Conagra revenues missed for the fourth time in five quarters.

Meanwhile, the oversupply in the airline industry’s routes and number of seats available this summer is pressuring airfares, especially among lower cost airlines. But Delta Air Lines – which offers a bevy of premium offerings – also saw headwinds as two key metrics fell short of analyst estimates. Revenue per available seat mile fell nearly 3% from a year ago on an adjusted basis, while passenger loads on its airplanes were a tad lighter than expected too.

— Robert Hum

Small cap stocks saw the biggest rally after the cool CPI report, with the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) jumping about 3%.

Small caps have underperformed throughout this market rally, and the Russell 2000 was up less than 2% for the year entering Thursday.

Part of the reason that small cap stocks have struggled is concern that higher interest rates will make it more difficult for those companies to pay off or refinance their debt, especially if the U.S. economy fell into a recession. But the possibility of a “soft landing” was bolstered on Thursday, with both CPI and weekly jobless claims declining from their prior readings.

— Jesse Pound

Expectations for a September rate cut jumped after the latest inflation data showed easing pricing pressures.

Markets are currently pricing in a greater than 80% chance the Federal Reserve will lower rates in September, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. That’s up from a roughly 70% chance just the prior day.

There’s also a greater probability of three quarter-percentage point rate cuts this year. The chance of the federal funds rate ending the year at 4.50% to 4.75% has jumped, to 41.7% from 26.2% in the previous session. The probability of it ending the year at 5.00% to 5.25% fell, to 44.1% from 46.2%.

— Sarah Min, Jeff Cox

June’s consumer price index reading is promising news for the inflation front — and supports the case for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates at their September meeting, according to Comerica Wealth Management chief investment officer John Lynch.

Lynch noted that the CPI report is also important for the market on several fronts.

“Reduced borrowing costs can help personal spending, as consumer stocks have lagged the S&P 500 this year. Lower rates can also aid debt service payments for the federal budget deficit. And finally, the equity market can benefit from lower discount rates for future profits, helping to support P/E multiples going forward,” Lynch said.

To be sure, he added that “investors should be careful what they wish for.”

“If the Fed cuts much beyond that, it will be because the Fed has to cut! That is not an environment conducive for economic or market growth,” said Lynch.

— Hakyung Kim

BJ’s Wholesale Club could follow Costco’s suit in raising membership fees, according to Wells Fargo.

“Now that COST has raised its fee, investor attention is likely to turn to BJ,” the Wall Street firm said. “The company has had good membership performance and may not want to risk upsetting momentum in the near term.”

Costco raised its membership fee for the first time since 2017, hiking the cost of its annual membership by $5 in the U.S. and Canada and increased its higher-tier plan by $10.

Wells Fargo said it expects to see a similar fee hike next year from BJ’s Wholesale, which the firm will reinvest back into customer value.

— Yun Li

The S&P 500 ticked higher on Thursday and hovered near a fresh record following June inflation data.

The broad market index added 0.04%. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked down 5 points, or 0.02%.

— Brian Evans

MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, announced a 10-for-1 stock split on Thursday.

The company said the shares will be split into class A common stock and class B common stock “to make MicroStrategy’s stock more accessible to investors and employees.” The move comes amid a lull for the price of bitcoin, which has been stuck in a tight range since about March but which many investors expect to rebound in the second half of the year.

The shares rose about 5% in premarket trading, but are currently about 34% off an all-time high of $1,999.99, reached in March of this year.

Read the full story here.

— Tanaya Macheel

The dollar index fell to a fresh low of 104.395 following June’s consumer price index report. This marked the dollar index’s lowest level since June 12, when the index declined to 104.257.

The measure of the U.S. dollar relative to other currencies briefly dipped below the 200-day moving average level of 104.449 which it has not traded below since June 12.

— Hakyung Kim, Gina Francolla

The consumer price index unexpectedly fell 0.1% in June on a month-over-month basis, helping the case for lower Federal Reserve rates. Year over year, it rose 3%, around its lowest level in more than three years.

Economists polled by Dow Jones expected CPI to rise 0.1% month over month and 3.1% year on year. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased less than expected.

— Fred Imbert

Here are some of the stocks on the move in the premarket:

• Delta Air Lines — Shares tumbled 9% after the airline issued a lower-than-expected sales growth forecast in the current quarter. Net income also fell 30% in the second quarter despite revenue reaching record highs.
• Costco Wholesale — Costco shares added 2% after the wholesale club raised its membership fee for the first time since 2017. The company hiked the cost of its annual membership by $5 in the U.S. and Canada and increased its higher-tier plan by $10.
• Pfizer – Shares rose 3% after the drugmaker said it will continue to develop the once-daily version of its weight loss pill following “encouraging” data in an early-stage trial, and plans to conduct studies in the second half of the year evaluating multiple doses of the drug.

Read the full list of stocks on the move here.

— Samantha Subin

Shares of Pfizer rose more than 2% in premarket trading Thursday after the drugmaker said it will continue to develop the once-daily version of its weight loss pill, danuglipron. The news follows “encouraging” data in an ongoing early-stage trial of the drug.

Pfizer said it plans to conduct studies in the second half of the year evaluating multiple doses of danuglipron. In December the company discontinued a twice-daily version of it after patients had trouble tolerating the drug in a mid-stage trial.

— Annika Kim Constantino, Tanaya Macheel

Shares of Delta Air Lines were down more than 7% after the airline issued disappointing guidance for the third quarter. The company expects earnings per share between $1.70 and $2. That’s below a StreetAccount consensus of $2.04 per share.

The weak outlook overshadowed better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the second quarter.

— Fred Imbert

PepsiCo shares were down more than 1% after the snack and beverage giant posted mixed results for the fiscal second quarter. The company earned $2.28 per share, beating an LSEG estimate of $2.16 per share. Revenue came in just below expectations at $22.5 billion.

“During the second quarter, our business delivered net revenue growth, strong gross and operating margin expansion and double-digit EPS growth, remaining agile despite facing difficult net revenue growth comparisons versus the prior year, subdued category performance within North America convenient foods and the impacts associated with certain product recalls at Quaker Foods North America,” CEO Ramon Laguarta said in a statement.

— Fred Imbert

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Board fined Citigroup $60.6 million for violating a 2020 enforcement action, according to a press release.

“Citigroup has made insufficient progress remediating its problems with data quality management and failed to implement compensating controls to manage its ongoing risk,” the press release read. “The Board continues to monitor Citigroup’s actions to comply with the 2020 action, which remains in effect.”

The Board’s fine, combined with those of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, total to around $135.6 million for the bank.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Inflation and the timing of the Federal Reserve’s first cut could be key stories to the market on Thursday, with the June consumer price index report due out before the bell. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones are looking for the CPI to be up 0.1% month over month, and 3.1% year over year.

That would still be above the Fed’s 2% inflation target, but would be a slowdown from May. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday on Capitol Hill that the Fed doesn’t need to wait until inflation gets all the way to 2% to cut rates, especially with signs that the labor market has cooled off.

“For some time the Fed has been more focused on levels, and now it seems that they may be starting to tilt more towards a focus on trend. And if that’s the case, then the chances of a rate cut go up,” said Matt Brenner, managing vice president, investments and product management at MissionSquare Retirement.

— Jesse Pound