Stocks are pointing to a higher open as the Dow Jones Industrial Average looks to avoid a fourth straight week of losses; Treasury yields and oil futures are declining at the end of a volatile week; the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are on track to rise for a second straight week, while the Dow is down 0.6% for the week; Akamai shares are jumping on an $11.6 billion deal with AI giant Anthropic; and Costco beat estimates in its latest earnings report.
Here’s what you need to know today.
Futures Point Higher Ahead of Week’s Final Session
Stock futures are rising this morning. Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were each up nearly 0.4% in recent trading, while Nasdaq futures are up 0.7%. The Dow ended slightly lower yesterday while the S&P and Nasdaq finished roughly flat. Gold futures are rising more than 1% to $4,347 an ounce, while bitcoin is trading near $84,900, up from yesterday’s lows of $82,900.
Treasury Yields, Oil Declining After Volatile Week
Treasury yields and oil prices are falling after a dramatic week. The 10-year Treasury yield, recently above 5.17%, has risen as fears of persistent inflation forcing the Fed to raise interest rates have powered a bond sell-off and pushed yields to multi-decade highs. Soaring yields are also impacting other areas of the economy, including mortgage rates, which recently topped 7% for the first time in over a year. Oil prices are down to roughly $93 a barrel this morning. High oil prices lead to higher fuel prices, which raise shipping costs and often lead businesses to lift prices. Oil prices have largely moved between $90 and $100 recently amid a lack of progress towards ending the Iran war.
S&P 500, Nasdaq on Track to Post Weekly Gains
Through the past four sessions, the S&P 500 is up 0.7% while the Nasdaq is up 1.6% thanks to a tech rally that started the week. This would mark a second straight week of gains for both indexes. The Dow, meanwhile, is down 0.6% and on track to post a fourth straight week of declines. Inflation fears and concerns over the length of the Iran war have pressured some areas of the market lately, but fears of AI disruption have lately weighed on others—such as financial services, which this week were hit by the release of Meta’s (META) Muse personal agent, which could become a tool for tasks like managing finances.
Akamai Stock Soars on Anthropic Deal
Shares of Akamai (AKAM) are surging this morning thanks to a seven-year deal the cloud computing and cybersecurity firm signed with Anthropic. After last night’s closing bell, Akamai said it would get $11.6 billion from Anthropic to “support Anthropic’s accelerating CPU workload demands by leveraging Akamai Cloud’s distributed AI infrastructure and software.” Anthropic, the maker of the Claude large language models, also received a warrant to buy up to 7.7 million, or roughly 5%, of Akamai’s outstanding shares, for $111.33 per share, valued at roughly $857.2 million. Shares of Akamai were up nearly 20% ahead of the opening bell.
Costco Tops Estimates in Latest Earnings Report
Costco Wholesale (COST) beat estimates in its latest earnings report, which came in after last night’s closing bell. The warehouse retail giant posted $95.72 billion in fiscal fourth-quarter sales, above the $94.85 billion mark that analysts had been expecting. Earnings per share came in at $6.75, topping estimates by 23 cents, while comparable sales growth of 9.4% also came in ahead of estimates. Tariff refunds from the Trump administration boosted earnings by about 15 cents per share. The company said it used some of that to lower prices. Costco shares, down 0.7% premarket, came into today up about 4% for the year as worries about inflation depressing consumer spending have pressured the stock since a record high back in May.