Dow Futures Fall More Than 200 Points Wednesday: Live Updates

ConocoPhillips is in talks to buy Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal that values ​​the energy company just north of $15 billion, the Financial Times reported.

The report, which cited people briefed on the matter, said a deal appeared imminent Tuesday evening, but added that it was possible negotiations could fail.

Shares of Marathon Oil jumped 5.8%, while ConocoPhillips slipped 0.7%.

The Adani Group and Paytm’s parent company One 97 Communications have denied a local media report that Adani was seeking to buy a stake in the Indian fintech company.

The Times of India reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that Gautam Adani was looking to buy a stake in Paytm. The report also said that Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekar Sharma also met at Adani’s office in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.

One 97 Communications called the report “speculative” and said it was not engaged in any discussion on the matter.

“We deny any such discussions,” an Adani spokesperson told CNBC, regarding discussions with Paytm.

Shares of One 97 Communications jumped nearly 5% in early trading. Shares of Adani Enterprises edged up 0.2%.

— Shreyashi Sanyal, Naman Tandon

A union at Samsung Electronics announced it would go on strike on June 7, which would be the first time in the company’s history that workers would choose to stop work.

The Samsung National Electronics Union, known as Jeonsamno in South Korea, represents about 28,000 workers, or more than a fifth of the electronics giant’s workforce.

The strike comes as wage negotiations between the union and the South Korean tech giant have stalled since January.

Samsung shares fell 1.16% on Wednesday.

-Lim Hui Jie

Official data showed consumer prices in Australia rose 3.6% year-on-year in April, more than expected.

The April weighted consumer price index reading was higher than the 3.4 percent gain forecast in a Reuters survey. It is also higher than the 3.5% increase in the CPI recorded in March.

“Inflation has been relatively stable over the past five months, although this is the second month in a row where annual inflation has seen a slight increase,” said Michelle Marquardt, head of price statistics at the Australian Bureau of Commerce. statistics.

The data showed that rises in prices for housing, food and non-alcoholic drinks, alcohol and tobacco as well as transport were the main contributors to the April figure.

-Shreyashi Sanyal

Major benchmarks hitting all-time highs without broad participation have investors worried about the health of the rally. However, one technician says low scale does not necessarily mean a weak market.

“If you look at the market, I still think it looks healthy because the bigger names still look very healthy,” said JC O’Hara, chief technical strategist at Roth MKM. He cited as an example Nvidia’s jump on Tuesday, an increase of 6%.

“When it has a big influence on the index, I think the index is good. It’s just that when you’re a stock picker, your pool of potential candidates for big buying opportunities diminishes,” he said. he declared.

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-Sarah Min

The problem is that markets are “priced to perfection.”

That’s the view expressed Tuesday by Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in a 15-page report written by Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer.

Even when inflation and interest rates fall, their levels “will remain well above recent business cycle lows, but this scenario is barely reflected in current market prices,” the report said. “With above-average uncertainties, markets priced to perfection, historically rich valuations and apparent investor complacency, we are focused on risk-adjusted returns and have little interest in the duration of stocks or bonds for the moment”, the branch of Morgan Stanley. that wealthy clients of the services wrote.

Stocks have soared to all-time highs “despite growing uncertainty over economic outcomes, potential policy responses and the upcoming presidential election,” thanks in large part to the rising price-to-earnings ratios that investors are willing to pay.

The market is expensive, Shalett writes. “The forward price-to-earnings multiple has been in the 90th percentile for the last 100 years.” An implied price-to-earnings ratio of 21 times forward S&P 500 earnings “is one of the highest forward multiples in the last 35 years, rivals the 2021 high, (and) approaches the all-time high achieved in the Internet bubble,” she said. wrote.

—Scott Schnipper

Want to get an idea of ​​how big Nvidia is? Let’s put it this way: The chipmaker’s $2.802 trillion market cap is more than $1 trillion larger than the entire S&P 500 energy sector. The incremental market cap of each The sector’s share is approximately $1.767 trillion.

Nvidia jumped 6.98% on Tuesday, hitting a new record high and building on its rise from last week. Since the start of the year, the stock has jumped 130%. It is up more than 31% this month.

Stock futures were mixed Tuesday evening.

Futures contracts tied to the 30-stock Dow slipped 34 points, or nearly 0.1%. S&P 500 futures lost 0.03%, while Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.03%.

— Pia Singh