Stock market today: Live updates

Retail sales dropped 0.8% in January from the prior month, the U.S. government said Thursday, in a sign pointing to slowing U.S. economic activity. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a decline of 0.3%.

— Fred Imbert

Shares dropped 4% in premarket trading after the manufacturer of agricultural machinery lowered its full-year net income guidance. However, it posted a beat in its first-quarter results.

Deere said it expects net income will be weaker than it previously expected. In its full year ending October, Deere expects net income of $7.50 billion to $7.75 billion, lower than prior guidance it issued between $7.75 billion and $8.25 billion.

“Moving forward, we expect fleet replenishment to moderate as agricultural fundamentals normalize from record levels in 2022 and 2023,” CEO John C. May said in a statement.

Otherwise, Deere exceeded first-quarter expectations on the top and bottom lines. It reported earnings of $6.23 per share on revenue of $10.47 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected per-share earnings of $5.21 on revenue of $10.34 billion.

— Sarah Min

Around 82% of the S&P 500’s market cap has posted fourth-quarter earnings, according to UBS. On average, the firm reports that earnings are beating consensus estimates by 7.1%,.

Tech companies are the top outperformers, per strategist Jonathan Golub. Looking both reported results and consensus estimates for companies that haven’t yet announced results, he found that the tech sector has announced earnings per share growth of 40.3%.

By comparison, the following best-performing group is financials, with 11.1% earnings. growth

Energy and materials stocks are underperforming. Earnings per share growth has declined 21.2% for the sector.

— Hakyung Kim

On the surface, the similarities may seem striking between the recent outperformance of the “Magnificent 7” tech stocks and the tech craze of the late 1990s.

“Prior to the tech bubble burst in 2000, share prices of tech stocks grew fivefold over a three-year period (the Mag 7 have more than doubled since January 2023 and are up fourfold since prior to the pandemic),” wrote HSBC strategist Nicole Inui.

But that, she says, is where the similarities end.

“Valuation premiums for tech in the late 1990s were much higher with the sector trading on average more than 40x earnings during the year 2000 compared to 27x today. And the quality of the companies were vastly different,” she added.

Inui also sees the market broadening in 2024, with opportunities emerging in sectors such as tech, industrials and consumer discretionary and staples.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Chrysler and Jeep parent Stellantis reported better-than-expected full-year adjusted earnings per share of €6.42, beating a StreetAccount estimate of €5.82 per share. The company also approved a €3 billion buyback program.

U.S.-listed shares popped 3.5% in the premarket.

Shares of Rakuten Group jumped more than 15% on Thursday after the Japanese technology conglomerate posted a smaller loss for 2023 compared with a year earlier.

Rakuten’s earnings report released late on Wednesday showed an operating loss of 212.86 billion yen for 2023, compared with 371.61 billion yen in 2022.

The company also recorded a smaller attributable loss of 339.47 billion yen, compared with 2022’s 377.21 billion yen.

Profit and revenue for its fintech and internet service business segments rose in 2023, while its mobile segment losses fell by almost 30% in 2023.

— Lim Hui Jie, Shreyashi Sanyal

Japan’s economy shrank unexpectedly during the last quarter of 2023, according to government data.

Provisional gross domestic product contracted 0.4% in the fourth quarter compared with a year ago, after a revised 3.3% slump in the July-September period.

The reading was also much lower than a Reuters poll forecast of 1.4% growth.

Japan also contracted 0.1% quarter-over-quarter, after shrinking a revised 0.8% in the third quarter from the second.

For more, please read the full story.

— Shreyashi Sanyal, Clement Tan

Singapore’s economy grew 2.2% year on year in the fourth quarter of 2023, official data on Thursday showed, falling short of both the advance estimates of a 2.8% growth and Reuters’ expectations of a 2.5% expansion.

On the whole, the Singapore economy grew 1.1% in 2023, slower than the 3.8% expansion in 2022. The growth in 2023 was largely driven by information and communications and transportation and storage sectors.

—Lee Ying Shan

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway trimmed several holdings during the fourth quarter, including Apple and HP, according to a securities filing published Wednesday.

Berkshire also requested that Securities and Exchange Commission keep at least one of its holdings under wrap. The firm made a similar request in its third quarter filing.

See the list of Berkshire’s top holdings on CNBC Pro.

— Jesse Pound, Yun Li

Even if index futures were calm on Wednesday, earnings reports were driving big after hours moves in individual stocks.

Cisco — Shares of the tech company fell more than 5% after announcing layoffs in its quarterly update.

Tripadvisor —The travel stock popped 7% after fourth quarter results beat Wall Street estimates on the top and bottom lines, according to LSEG.

Twilio — The tech stock sank 11%. Twilio’s revenue guidance for the fourth quarter was softer than expected, according to LSEG.

Check out more movers here.

— Jesse Pound, Darla Mercado

Stock futures were effectively flat shortly after 6 pm in New York. Nasdaq 100 futures slipped but were still down less than 0.1%.

— Jesse Pound