Nasdaq 100 outlook: NVIDIA stock hit by threat of new export ban

US futures mixed

• Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 0.1%
• S&P 500 is down 0.1%
• Nasdaq 100 is down 0.3%

Central banks remain the key theme as markets brace to see whether they will stick to their hawkish tone when they speak at the European Central Bank Forum today. Fed chair Jerome Powell, ECB president Christine Lagarde, the Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey and the head of the Bank of Japan Kazuo Ueda are all due to speak at the event this afternoon.

The remainder of the economic calendar is headlined by EIA gasoline and oil stocks change data out this afternoon.

Most discussed Reddit stocks

Below is a list of the top 10 most mentioned US stocks on the WallStreetBets thread on Reddit over the last 24 hours on June 28, 2023, according to data from Quiver Quantitative. Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) and other instruments have been excluded:

1. NVIDIA
2. C3.ai
3. Tesla
4. Advanced Micro Devices
5. Apple
6. Virgin Galactic
7. Coinbase
8. Lucid Group
9. Carnival
10. Meta

Most active US stocks before the bell

Below are the most active stocks with a valuation of at least $500 million before the bell, based on trading data taken from Bloomberg:

1. NVIDIA
2. OPKO Health
3. Carnival
4. Tesla
5. Advanced Micro Devices
6. Nikola
7. Marathon Digital
8. Lucid Group
9. AST SpaceMobile
10. Palantir

US premarket winners and losers

Here are the stocks worth at least $500 million experiencing the sharpest movements in premarket trade, according to data from Bloomberg:

Top US stocks to watch

Semiconductor stocks are down sharply this morning amid reports that the US government could be looking to close loopholes in an effort to tighten the amount of advanced chips used to power breakthrough technologies like artificial intelligence to China. NVIDIA is down 3.1%. The company earns about one-fifth of its revenue from China and has since designed less-powerful chips for the country since being told to stop exporting its most advanced products to China last year, but the government is set to expand the curbs to these chips as soon as July, the Wall Street Journal said.

The news is also weighing on other chip stocks, with AMD down 2.7% while Intel, Qualcomm and Marvell are all down 0.8% to 2.1%. The report suggests companies will need to obtain a license before being able to export any chips to China, severely knocking sentiment as a significant chunk of revenue comes under threat.

Big day for US banks, both for the big players like JPMorgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America as well as smaller regional banks, as we await for the results of the annual stress test out later today. The annual review is critical as it can determine how much cash they will have to return to shareholders. It comes in the wake of the banking crisis in March, which is set to lead to tighter capital requirements being introduced.

Big Tech remains at the forefront of the market. Apple is down 0.2% after closing at yet another all-time high as the iPhone maker edges closer to becoming the first to earn a $3 trillion valuation! Meanwhile, Meta is down 0.4% and trading just below the 18-month highs hit earlier this week. Amazon is up 0.3% at $129.50 and on the verge of testing recent 9-month highs after Needham raised its target price on the ecommerce and cloud computing giant to $150 from $120 this morning.

Alphabet is down 0.1% and on course to lose ground for a fourth consecutive session as brokers have warned it is at fair value this week. It was downgraded to Market Perform by Bernstein yesterday when it said its valuation, which has risen some 30% this year but underperformed its rivals, has ‘quickly caught up to the fundamentals’. It warned that Alphabet has gone from ‘too slow to too fast in AI’. UBS downgraded Alphabet on Monday on the belief that it will take time for AI to drive sales.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is up 0.6% as CEO Satya Nadella prepares to defend the firm’s $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard in court today as regulators attempt to block the combination. This is the fourth day of a five-day hearing and Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick will also be testifying. Microsoft is striving to close the deal before a deadline of July 18 which, if missed, risks scuppering the deal and a $3 billion penalty, but the Federal Trade Commission is arguing the deal should not be completed until a more extensive trial begins in August.

Tesla is up 0.5% today. The electric carmaker found some much-needed support yesterday from further good news for its charging network. Volvo has become the latest automaker to gain access to its 12,000 Superchargers across North America and will begin including Tesla’s connector into its designs from 2025. Meanwhile, ChargePoint said it will start supporting its connector, known as NACS, at its stations to further cement the view it is becoming the de-facto standard in the US.

Lucid Group is down 0.8% this morning. The stock popped almost 10% yesterday after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), its largest shareholder with a controlling stake, injected another $1.8 billion into the electric vehicle maker in return for another 266 million shares through a private placement that was announced back in May. That will help allay fears of its financial health, especially after startup Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday. Lucid Group announced earlier this week that it will help British luxury carmaker Aston Martin electrify its lineup in a deal that will see it take a stake in the company, which also counts PIF as a shareholder.

Boeing is up 1.5% after confirming about 90% of its 737 MAX fleet in China is in operation after airlines starting reusing the model at the start of the year. The model was grounded in China and several other countries following two deadly crashes back in 2018 and 2019. China has been the last country to give the model a clean bill of health. Boeing said some have been used on international routes across Asia.

Walgreens Boots Alliance is trading marginally higher after ending yesterday at its lowest level since 2012, as investors sold-off the stock following its earnings outlook cut and warning it was taking a more cautious view going forward.

Carnival is up 0.9% at $16.03. The cruise line operator suffered a sharp fall following a positive set of results earlier this week because the rally seen in 2023, which has made it the fourth best performer in the S&P 500, had set a high bar. However, it is now climbing back toward those highs. Citigroup is helping after raising its target price to $20 from $18 this morning, showing it believes there is still considerable upside potential.

Cryptocurrency stocks are giving back some of the strong gains booked yesterday, when markets became excited about the prospect of bitcoin exchange-traded funds being launched. Bitcoin briefly surged above $31,000 but has fallen back down today to around $30,300, with crypto stocks following lower with Coinbase down 1.7%, MicroStrategy down 2.6% and Marathon Digital down 1.1%. The Wall Street Journal said bankrupt FTX is trying to revive its international cryptocurrency exchange, citing its CEO John Ray. It is thought to be talking to interested parties that want to help ‘reboot’ the platform.

Overstock.com is up 5.7% after a court approved its plan to buy the Bed Bath & Beyond brand and assets for $21.5 million.

Virgin Galactic is up 2.1% ahead of its first commercial spaceflight tomorrow, when a three-person crew will experience a 90-minute flight to conduct science experiments. A successful mission would mark a major milestone for the company, which now needs to show it an deliver its flight schedule on time with the second flight pencilled-in for this August.

AST SpaceMobile is down over 27% as investors fret over the dilutive impact of its plans to raise $59.4 million in new equity by issuing 12.5 million shares in order to support the firm as it looks to launch new services in the third quarter of 2023.