S&P 500 rises, but Wall Street heads for a losing week: Live updates

While a recession may no longer be the base case for many investors and market strategists, the likelihood of a downturn have actually been on the rise in recent months, according to Abby Joseph Cohen.

“The tailwinds quite frankly, have gotten weaker,” the retired Goldman Sachs strategist told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday. “That doesn’t mean that we’re heading into a recession anytime soon, but I think we are in a situation where things are not quite as easy perhaps, as they might have been 18 months ago.”

The next 12 to 18 months will be the most difficult to forecast as Wall Street contends with a looming budget negotiations deadline and lingering concerns in China, among other issues.

— Samantha Subin

Oil prices are higher after Saudi Arabia and Mosco said they would expand their supply cuts this year. That trumped concerns of weaker demand out of China which is contending with a slow recovery from the pandemic.

— Sarah Min

These are some of the stocks making notable moves before the bell:

• Kroger — The retailer fell 2.8% following a mixed second-quarter report. Kroger also said it would pay as much $1.2 billion to settle most claims related to opioids.
• Planet Labs — The satellite imagery stock slipped 2.6% in premarket trading on Friday, a day after delivering a weaker quarterly report than expected.
• RH — The home goods retailer dropped 7.3% premarket after third quarter guidance fell short of analyst estimates and management warned of a challenging environment.

See the full list here.

— Alex Harring

RBC Capital Markets initiated coverage of ChargePoint Holdings with an outperform rating on Thursday and $9 price target, suggesting 27% upside from the prior session’s close.

Analyst Chris Dendrinos said the adoption of electric vehicles is not an “if” but a “when,” and with that comes the need for charging infrastructure.

“We believe the robust product portfolio, differentiated strategy, and asset-light business model position it to be a key beneficiary of positive secular trends in vehicle electrification and growing demand for charging infrastructure,” he wrote in a note to clients.

ChargePoint shares are down 34% year to date.

— Michelle Fox

Shares of Vir Biotechnology fell nearly 4% in the premarket after Bank of America downgraded them to neutral from buy. The bank also slashed its price target on the stock to $14 from $23. The new target implies upside of 21%.

Analyst Geoff Meacham noted that, “given near-term data are unlikely to lift investor sentiment, due to underwhelming data in both influenza A and hepatitis B in 1H23.”

“While we remain bullish on Vir’s antibody platform and long-term opportunity in Hep B/D and influenza, in our view progression to pivotal success is a way away,” the analyst added.

U.S. Treasury yields fell on Friday as investors fretted over the possibility of further interest rate hikes.

At 4:12 a.m. ET, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was down by more than two basis points to 4.2344%. The 2-year Treasury yield was over one basis point lower at 4.9422%.

Yields and prices have an inverted relationship and one basis point equals 0.01%.

European markets opened higher on Friday, looking to shake off a streak of seven consecutive sessions of losses.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.3% at the start of trade, with most sectors in marginally positive territory. Retail stocks led minor gains with a 0.9% uptick, followed by tech, which was 0.6% higher.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

The offshore yuan weakened to its lowest level against the U.S. dollar since its inception in 2010, crossing the 7.35 level early this morning to trade at 7.3599 yuan per dollar.

The Chinese currency later pared its losses slightly, trading at 7.513 yuan against the greenback.

China’s onshore yuan, which is traded on the mainland, was also at a 16-year high, trading at 7.3417 against the dollar.

— Lim Hui Jie

The Philippine trade deficit increased to $4.2 billion in July, a climb compared to the $3.9 billion deficit seen in June.

Exports in July fell 1.2% year-on-year, a reversal from the 0.9% growth in June. Imports to the country however, plunged 15.3% year-on-year in July, a steeper fall from the 15.0% contraction the previous month.

In July, the Philippines’ total external trade in goods amounted to $16.49 billion, which is 10.5% lower year-on-year.

— Lim Hui Jie

Japan’s second quarter gross domestic product expanded less then expected, with the economy growing 4.8% on a quarter-on-quarter annualized basis.

This was lower than the 6% announced in the preliminary release in August, and below the 5.5% growth expected by economists polled by Reuters.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, second quarter GDP climbed by 1.2%, compared to the 1.5% rise seen in the preliminary basis and slightly lower than the 1.3% expected by the Reuters poll.

— Lim Hui Jie

Investors flocked to bonds via exchange traded funds last month as stocks suffered, according to State Street Global Advisors.

Inflows into ETFs overall were weak, coming in at $15 billion in August, the firm found. U.S. equity ETFs brought in $6 billion as the S&P 500 limped through the month with a roughly 1.8% loss.

However, bonds captured $11 billion, and investors poured $8 billion of inflows into ultra-short duration government bond funds, State Street found.

Even as investors turned to fixed income while in risk-off mode, August’s inflows into bond ETFs still fell short of the $17 billion those funds receive in a month on average.

“The market’s summer dreams have been dashed, as the summer loving good vibrations from June and July did not carry over into August,” wrote Matthew Bartolini, head of SPDR Americas Research at State Street Global Advisors.

–Darla Mercado

Yext, a cloud-based provider of apps, search engines and other platforms to help businesses manage online listings, tumbled almost 28% Thursday — its biggest one-day decline since going public in April 2017.

The decline came after Yext’s latest financial results for its second quarter ended July 31, and guidance for the third quarter and full year. Second-quarter per share earnings, revenue and EBITDA beat estimates, while forward guidance was more mixed, accoding to StreetAccount.

CEO Michael Walrath said on the earnings call that Yext customers are closely monitoring their marketing spending. “There’s more budget pressure,” he said, “I think there’s more conservatism coming out of the enterprises and it causes more discussions about, where is the budget for incremental opportunities coming from whether those are new logo, upsell. And in some cases, we’re seeing cost-cutting pressure within existing customers.”

— Scott Schnipper, Gina Francolla