Stocks seen opening lower
U.S. stock markets are expected to fall at the opening bell on Friday following a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell during a debate hosted by the International Monetary Fund on Thursday.
At the event, Powell signaled the Fed is likely to hike interest rates by 50 basis points at its policy meeting next month. He also indicated similar rate hikes could be needed after that to combat surging inflation.
“I would say 50 basis points will be on the table for the May meeting,” Powell said. “We’re really going to be raising rates and getting expeditiously to levels that are more neutral and then that are actually tightening policy if that turns out to be appropriate once we get there.”
As of 5:30 a.m. ET, the blue-chip Dow futures edged 48 points, or 0.14% to 34,661. S&P 500 futures were down 4.5 points, or 0.1% to 4,386 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 6.75 points to 13,721.5.
Elon Musk raises $46 billion to fund Twitter bid
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) chief executive Elon Musk has secured $46.5 billion to fund a possible takeover of Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) with the tech mogul putting up roughly $21 billion of his own money.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dated Wednesday, Musk said that he may now appeal directly to shareholders because the company hasn’t yet responded to his proposal.
The documents show that Musk, who is offering to acquire Twitter for $43 billion, has raised $25.5 billion in debt, including a loan against part of his stake in Tesla, from a group of investment banks, to explore “whether to commence a tender offer” to Twitter shareholders to acquire their shares.
Last week, Twitter adopted “poison pill” to fend off Musk from effecting a hostile takeover.
Snap shares slide on disappointing Q1 results
On the earnings front, shares of Snap (NYSE: SNAP) were trading lower early Friday after the social media company reported bigger-than-expected loss in the first quarter.
The company posted a net loss of 22 cents per share on Thursday evening. Analysts polled by FactSet had called for a net loss of 17 cents per share.
Revenue came in at $1.06 billion, in line with analysts’ estimates.
Global daily active users jumped (DAUs) grew 18% on a year-over-year basis to 332 million and topped the consensus forecast for versus 330 million.
Snap shares were marked 1.84% to $28.88 apiece in the premarket trading session.
