Morning in New York: PMI statistics will determine the activity of "bulls"

Daily review and forecast of events on the U.S. stock market from Mikhail Denislamov, Deputy Director of Freedom Capital Markets Research.

A block of November macro data, including ADP's private sector employment report (consensus: +40k, October: +42k), as well as ISM (consensus: 52 points, October: 52.4 points) and S&P Global (consensus final estimate: 55 points) business activity indexes will be the key benchmarks for participants in the upcoming trades. In the absence of comments from the Fed due to the "silence period" before the next meeting, it is the employment and price indicators that will allow investors to assess how actively the labor market is cooling down and inflation is slowing down. Moderately weak data will reinforce expectations for a key rate cut. The estimated probability of this decision exceeds 92%.

Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang will meet with Republican senators today. A key topic of discussion is likely to be the balance between the company's desire to supply chips to China and national security concerns. The outcome of this meeting could influence future export control policies and semiconductor manufacturers in general.

Dollar Tree (DLTR), Macy's (M) will report quarterly results before the main session opens. Salesforce (CRM), Snowflake (SNOW), C3.ai (AI), UiPath (PATH), Five Below (FIVE), PVH Corp (PVH) and Methode Electronics (MEI) will report at the postmarket.

Futures on US indices demonstrate positive dynamics. We assess the balance of risks for the upcoming trades as neutral with moderate volatility. We focus on S&P 500 fluctuations in the range of 6780-6885 points (from -0.7% to +0.8% of the previous session's closing level).

- Record quarterly results and an optimistic outlook for the fourth quarter led Marvell Technology (MRVL) shares to soar more than 9%. Revenue reached a record $2.075 billion (+37% YoY), beating the company's own guidance by $15 million, and adjusted EPS came in at $0.76 with a consensus of $0.74. The CEO said the results were driven by strong demand for data center solutions. The company announced the acquisition of startup Celestial AI for $3.25 billion to strengthen its position in the AI infrastructure segment.

- Management's comments about a record start to the holiday season and an increase in its fiscal Q4 comparable sales growth forecast to 8-9% with a consensus of 2.1% caused American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) stock to jump 10%. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.53, compared to the average market expectation of $0.44. The adjusted operating profit guidance for the year was revised from $255-265 million to $303-308 million.

- CrowdStrike (CRWD) shares are losing about 3% amid profit taking after growing 25% over the last three months. The company reported total revenue of $1.23 billion (+22% YoY) for the quarter, with estimates ranging from $1.21-1.22 billion, while adjusted EPS reached a record $0.96, compared to the consensus of $0.94.

- Okta (OKTA) shares are down 4%, though its quarterly adjusted earnings came in at $0.82 per share on forecasts of $0.76, and revenue came in at $742 million (+12% YoY) versus expectations of $730 million. Net income rose 169% YoY to $43 million. For the fourth quarter, the company forecasts revenue in the range of $748-750 million with EPS in the range of $0.84-0.85, which is above consensus.

Trading on December 2 on American stock exchanges ended mostly in the plus. S&P 500 added 0.25%, Nasdaq 100 rose by 0.84%, Dow Jones rose by 0.39%, only Russell 2000 lost 0.17%. The technology sector (XLK: +1.03%) led the way, while the energy sector (XLE: -1.29%) was the outsider. The shares of the Magnificent Seven showed predominantly positive dynamics.

Market sentiment was determined by corporate news signaling increased competition and volatility in the artificial intelligence sector. Reports about OpenAI's introduction of a "code red" mode to boost the release of an improved version of ChatGPT were taken as a direct recognition of growing pressure from competitors, in particular Alphabet (GOOGL: +0.3%) with its new Gemini 3 model and Anthropic, which is gaining popularity among corporate clients. Competition is intensifying in the hardware space as well. Amazon (AMZN: +0.2%) announced the release of its own cheap and efficient AI chip Trainium3, which was seen by the investment community as a direct challenge to the dominance of Nvidia (NVDA: +0.9%), making it question the stability of the current industry leaders. Against this background, traders once again preferred to take profits in AI-related stocks.

- Boeing (BA: +10.1%) management gave an optimistic free cash flow forecast for 2026 at the UBS conference and announced growth in deliveries of the 737 and 787 series airplanes.

- Apple (AAPL: +1.1%) and Intel (INTC: +8.7%) announced progress in negotiations on the supply of advanced chips. This gives grounds to forecast additional capacity utilization and growth of the latter's contract business.

- Amazon's (AMZN: +0.2%) plans to test in Seattle and Philadelphia the ultra-fast delivery service Amazon Now, which promises to bring everyday goods and groceries in about 30 minutes, added pressure on Instacart (CART: -2.9%) as investors fear increased competition in the ultra-fast delivery segment, where groceries, household goods and FMCG categories form a significant share of the company's orders.

- Block (XYZ: -6.6%) management said at the aforementioned UBS conference call that it expects a sequential slowdown in gross payment volume (GMV) growth in the Square ecosystem in the fourth quarter due to unfavorable weather conditions in October. Consumer traffic was also predicted to weaken. This heightened market participants' concerns about the sensitivity of the business to macroeconomic and seasonal factors.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor