US shares were set to extend losses on Tuesday as investors around the world turned lukewarm to equities after President Donald Trump sacked his freshly-appointed attorney-general for refusing to enforce a travel ban from seven Muslim-majority nations, while a Fed rate meeting and heavy earnings calendar did their bit too.
Traders are assessing Trump's latest moves related to his travel ban, which bars citizens of selected countries from entering the United States for 90 days and puts the US refugee program on gold for 120 days.
Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates Monday night for "refusing to enforce" the order.
The S&P 500 is indicated down 0.3%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.2% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite down 0.3%.
The U.S. Federal Reserve will kick off a two-day meeting to discuss interest rates and monetary policy on Tuesday.
Fed chair Janet Yellen said earlier this month that the economy is near maximum employment and inflation was moving closer to the central bank's goal. Yellen reiterated that she and other Fed leaders expect to raise rates a "few times a year" until 2019.
The Fed may also discuss Trump's new policies and their economic impact. Before Trump took office, Fed officials said there was "considerable uncertainty" surrounding his plans.
However, a US rate hike is not on the cards this month.
Meanwhile, fresh from a $7.2bn settlement with US regulators over toxic mortgage assets as well as a $2.5bn payback in 2015 over interest rate manipulation, Deutsche Bank was back in the doghouse.
The German lender is facing roughly $630mln in fines for failing to deal with a Russian money-laundering scheme that used its London and New York branches. Deutsche’s ADRs were up 0.7% at $20.25 pre-market.
Shares in UPS (NYSE:UPS) fell more than 4% in pre-market trading to $112.00 on Tuesday after the US package delivery and logistics company, whose massive footprint makes it a closely watched economic bellwether, issued earnings guidance for the 2017 year that trailed estimates.
The company said it expects adjusted diluted earnings per share to come in between $5.80 to $6.10 this year – compared to the average of $6.17 forecast by analysts – as a result of the stronger dollar, which is expected to shave 30 cents off its adjusted EPS and lower the EPS growth rate by some 500 basis points.
ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) has become the second large oil company to report earnings well below analysts’ expectations, following Chevron on Friday.
Exxon’s earnings per share were 41 cents for the fourth quarter of 2016, with net income of $1.68bn, 40% lower than expected. The average of analysts’ forecasts was for earnings per share of 70 cents in the quarter.
But Exxon shares were 0.3% higher at $85.15.
Under Armour (NYSE:UAA), a sports clothing retailer that has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the trend of people wearing work out clothes outside the gym, saw its shares plunge more than 27% in pre-market trading on Tuesday after the company badly missed expectations for its fourth-quarter sales and earnings and announced the departure of its chief financial officer. Its shares were savaged by 26.5% to $21.27.
It was also earnings day for one of the exchanges that carries these shares. Nasdaq reported and things looked a tad off-colour.
Having faced stiff competition, Nasdaq, the US exchanges operator, is closing its London-based interest rate futures trading venue and will take a $578mln charge related to its fixed income business, as part of an overhaul by new chief executive Adena Friedman.
The US group said on Tuesday that it would shut down NLX and would work “with customers to manage the wind down of open positions in an orderly manner”.
In her first set of earnings since becoming chief executive, Ms Friedman said the decision was “to better align our business segments, management, resources and clients. While this had an impact on our quarterly results, we feel it puts us in a stronger position to execute on the market opportunities in front of us.”
For the year to December 31, Nasdaq said revenues, minus transaction-based expenses, rose from $2.1bn to $2.3bn. Net income fell from $427m to $108m, hit by the non-cash charge.
US wireless group Sprint (NYSE:S) signed up the highest number of lucrative mobile-phone customers in a quarter in four years, sending shares up 1.5 per cent in premarket trading.
Sprint, controlled by Softbank, the telecoms empire of Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, added 368,000 “postpaid” phone subscribers, who are billed on a recurring monthly basis, during the final three months of the year.
Sprint shares were up 1.5% at $9.25.
In data, home-price appreciation across 20 major US metropolitan areas unexpectedly picked up steam in November, a highly-regarded survey released on Tuesday showed.
The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index climbed in November by 5.3 per cent from the same month in the previous year, up from 5.1 per cent in October. Wall Street economists expected the pace to tick lower to 5 per cent.
And if you think health matters more than wealth, heads-up that Tuesday is the last day in which to enroll for 2017 cover under Obamacare.
The medical enfranchisement is under threat of repeal or dilution after election campaign comments made by Trump