Stocks poised to rise at open
Wall Street looks set to open higher on Thursday after President Donald Trump said that he will delay the introduction of higher tariffs on Chinese products until October 15.
In a tweet Wednesday night, Trump said Chinese Vice Premier Liu He requested him to postpone his scheduled October 1 increase as the date coincides with the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
Hours before Trump made the announcement, China released a list of 16 U.S.-made goods that it will exempt from the latest round of retaliatory tariffs. The two economic giants are set to meet next month for another round of high-level trade talks.
At around 5:20 a.m. ET, the blue-chip Dow futures were up 54 points, or about 0.2% to 27,198. Futures on the broader S&P 500 rose 4.38 points, or around 0.15% to 3,006.38, while those on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 indicated a gain of 25.75 points, or roughly 0.33% to 7,915.5.
All eyes on ECB
Investors will be keeping a close eye on today’s European Central Bank meeting, which is widely expected to result in new stimulus moves aimed at stimulating the weakening eurozone economy.
Economists expect that the ECB will announce a 10 or 20 basis point cut in its record-low minus 0.4% deposit rate. The bank will announce its decision at 7:45 a.m. ET, with President Mario Draghi set to hold a news conference later.
SmileDirectClub has officially priced its IPO at $23 per share
SmileDirectClub priced its initial public offering at $23 per share late Wednesday. This price is above the $19 to $22 proposed price range previously proposed by the teledentistry company in earlier financial documents.
The price would give SmileDirectClub a valuation of $8.9 billion according to CNBC, significantly above the $3.2 billion valuation that the company had 11 months ago after a funding round.
Nashville-based SmileDirectClub raised about $1.3 billion after selling 58.5 million shares. Shares of the company will begin start trading today under the symbol “SDC” on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
