Futures point to a flat open
U.S. equity futures were nearly unchanged Wednesday as traders remained on the sidelines ahead of a speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday.
As of 5:50 a.m. ET, the blue-chip Dow futures slipped 51 points, or 0.18% to 28,142. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures added 31 points, or 0.26% to 11,757.25 while the S&P 500 futures were flat.
Traders will be listening closely to Powell’s speech on the opening day of the annual Jackson Hole conference tomorrow for any hints on how the central bank will try to manage the long-term economic recovery.
The Jackson Hole conference is a closely watched event, as participants have previously tackled topical issues in interviews or outlined policy changes.
Palantir chooses direct listing to go public
Secretive tech company Palantir Technologies has opted to use a direct listing method to go public instead of a traditional IPO, according to a Form S- 1 filed by the company on Tuesday.
A direct listing means that Palantir will avoid underwriters and simply list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The company is scheduled to go public sometime this fall and shares will trade under the ticker symbol “PLTR.”
Palantir was founded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to develop software to combat terrorism. The company specializes in data-gathering and analysis, most of which it does for U.S. government agencies.
According to its prospectus, the company made a loss of $588 million, or $580 million on a pro-forma basis last year, and a loss of $165 million, or $175 million on a pro-forma basis in the first half of 2020. Revenues rose nearly 24% from $590 million in 2018 to $740 in 2019.
Salesforce stock surges as earnings top estimates
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM)’s shares were surging early Wednesday after the enterprise software company reported stronger-than-expected Q2 earnings on Tuesday. The company also provided an upbeat outlook for the full year despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Earnings per share came in at $1.44, up 118.18% from the same period last year. Revenue grew 28.87% on a year-over-year basis to $5.1 billion. Salesforce.com was expected to report second-quarter earnings of 67 cents per share on revenue of $4.90 billion.
For the full year, the company expects to post earnings of $3.72 to $3.74 per share, and revenue of $20.7 billion to $20.8 billion. Analysts have been projecting full-year revenue of $20.1 billion and earnings of $2.96 per share.
As of this writing, the stock was up $31.59, or 14.62% to $247.64 a share in the pre-market trading session.