- Target reported income.
- Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that Fox hosts endorsed Trump’s bogus election claims.
- Meta delves deeper into artificial intelligence.
Here are the most important news items investors need to start their trading day:
The bulls will be eager to say goodbye to February. All three major indices will end in the red this month as we enter the last day of the frame. The Dow suffered the most. It is 3.5% lower for February and negative for the year. The Nasdaq and S&P 500, meanwhile, are still positive for the year. Tuesday also brings a series of major earnings reports, most notably Target (see below), and more economic data, namely consumer confidence, wholesale inventories, Chicago PMI and the S&P Case-Shiller home price index. Follow live market updates.
People walk along 5th Avenue in Manhattan, one of the country’s main shopping streets on February 15, 2023 in New York City.
Spencer Plat | Getty Images
Target joins the tentative chorus. The big-box retailer, which reported results Tuesday, issued a bland outlook for the year, a week after Walmart and Home Depot also warned they are preparing for a slowdown in consumer spending. Target said it expects full-year earnings per share of between $7.75 and $8.75, which is lower than Wall Street’s expectations of $9.23 per share. On the upside for Target, the company beat Wall Street earnings estimates for the first time in a year as it squeezed out a holiday quarter revenue gain.
Rupert Murdoch
Drew Anger | Bloomberg | Getty Images
More documents from the $1.6 billion Dominion Voting defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company came out Monday night, and they don’t bode well for the conservative network. In the latest court documents, Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch acknowledged in a statement that some hosts on his right-wing cable channels, Fox News and Fox Business, endorsed then-President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election. “Some of our commentators endorsed it,” Murdoch said. “They endorsed.” Fox’s lawyers have defended the company saying this is all a free speech issue protected by the First Amendment. The case will go to court in mid-April.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrates an Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset and Oculus Touch controllers at the Oculus Connect 3 event in San Jose, California, USA, on Thursday, October 6, 2016.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Facebook parent company Meta said Monday it would create a new group that will focus on what it calls generative artificial intelligence. This move makes Meta the latest Big Tech company to join the AI craze, along with Microsoft Bing’s OpenAI-powered chatbot, OpenAI’s proprietary ChatGPT, and Google’s Bard product. It also comes days after Meta itself announced its own grand language model, LLaMA. “We have a lot of foundational work to do before we can get into the truly futuristic experiences, but I’m excited about all the new things we’ll be building along the way,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
An image of the damage after attacks as the war between Russia and Ukraine continues in Bakhmut, Ukraine on February 24, 2023.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The situation in Bakhmut, a mining town in eastern Ukraine, is deteriorating for the Ukrainian armed forces. Russian troops and mercenaries from the Vladimir Putin-affiliated Wagner Group have been targeting the city for months, slowly tearing down its defenses and leaving a wide swath of destruction in its wake. “The enemy is constantly destroying everything that can be used to protect our positions, gain a foothold and ensure defense,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday. Follow live war updates.
– CNBC’s Samantha Subin, Melissa Repko, Lillian Rizzo, Kif Leswing and Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report.
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