Futures pointing to a weak start
U.S. stocks are set to open slightly lower on Monday as market participants looked ahead to this week’s flood of corporate earnings and remained optimistic about a strong economic recovery.
Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Snap (NYSE: SNAP), and Honeywell (NYSE: HON) are among the major companies reporting results this week.
As of 5:30 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue-chip Dow were indicated 80.5 points, or 0.24% lower to 34,000.5. S&P 500 futures dropped 6.13 points, or 0.15% to 4,170.12 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were flat.
GameStop CEO George Sherman to step down; Stock jumps
GameStop (NYSE: GME) said on Monday that George Sherman would step down as chief executive officer, buckling under pressure from activist investor activist investor Ryan Cohen.
The struggling videogame retailer said Sherman, who has been CEO since 2019, will step down by July 31.
GameStop stock has become a favorite of day traders on Reddit this year, sending it surging about 650%. Unfortunately, the retailer has struggled to pull out of a slump with profit and revenue falling short of analysts’ estimates in its most recently reported quarter.
The stock was up 6.34% to $164.50 a share in pre-market trading Monday.
Manchester United shares soar after confirming plans of a breakaway Super League
Meanwhile, shares of Manchester United (NYSE: MANU) gained 6.68% to $17.25 in pre-market hours Monday after the UK-based soccer club and eleven of the biggest European clubs announced a breakaway ‘Super League’ on Sunday.
Manchester United said in a statement that the club along with Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, AC Milan, Internazionale, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, and Real Madrid have all joined as founding clubs.
The clubs said they intend to add at least three more founding members and play midweek matches that would make the Super League a major threat to the existing UEFA Champions League.
UEFA said in a joint statement with the leagues and national governing bodies from England, Italy and Spain that Super League was a “cynical project, a project that is founded on the self-interest of a few clubs.”
Bitcoin rebounds after a top Chinese official calls it an “investment alternative”
On the crypto front, the price of bitcoin bounced back early Monday after falling as low as $52,148.98 on Sunday.
At the time of writing bitcoin was trading at $57,154.76 after the People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor, Li Bo, was quoted by CNBC calling the cryptocurrency an “investment alternative.”
“We regard Bitcoin and stablecoin as crypto assets … These are investment alternatives,” Bo said at the Boao Forum for Asia, according to CNBC.
The remarks mark a potential shift in tone by Beijing, which shut down cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017 citing worries about the risks to financial stability.
