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    'Bear market rally' is setting stage for a correction, Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson warns

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    A major Wall Street firm is on correction watch.
    Despite the latest market bounce, Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson is bracing for an S&P 500 decline of at least 13% between now and September.

    Wilson cited technical headwinds on CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Monday.
    “It does have all the hallmarks of what I would call a bear market rally,” said the firm’s chief U.S. equity strategist and chief investment officer. “Things got oversold.”
    He also singles out the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which rallied almost 2% on Monday. It’s up more than 13% over the past three weeks.
    “The Nasdaq has run into resistance again here…. throwing back into the 200-day moving average,” Wilson added. “It’s a good time to remain defensive because, look, we’re late cycle.”
    He has been worried the inflation surge and Federal Reserve’s tightening policy increases recession risks. It could create an environment, according to Wilson, where stocks perform worse than bonds.

    “We don’t think there’s a recession this year. But maybe next year there could be one,” Wilson said. “So, the markets are going to trade defensively.”
    Wilson, the market’s biggest bear, believes the S&P 500 will ultimately end the year at 4,400 — about a 9% drop from the index’s all-time high hit on Jan. 4.

    ‘We’re doubling down on defensives’

    “We’re doubling down on defensives,” Wilson wrote in his Monday research note. “Growth is becoming the primary concern for equity investors rather than higher rates.”
    Wilson’s market playbook includes utilities, consumer staples and health care to outperform.
    On “Fast Money” last winter, he also touted the merits of stock picks with defensive qualities and a burst below 4,000.
    “I need something below 4,000 to get really constructive,” said Wilson on Jan. 24. “I do think that’ll happen.”
    Now, he’s open to toning down his bearishness if the Fed doesn’t raise rates as fast or as hard.
    “That’s probably off the table given the inflation that’s out there,” noted Wilson. “But that would be a real elixir that would allow the markets to probably go a little bit further.”
    He also lists better-than-expected earnings as a potential upside wildcard. First quarter earnings season begins a week from Wednesdays.
    “If we’re going to be wrong, it’s going to be on earnings. It’s not going to be because financial conditions loosen up again,” Wilson said. “It’s going to be because earnings don’t disappoint as we’re expecting as we go through the year.”
    Disclaimer

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    Stock futures are flat in overnight trading after tech-led rally

    Stock futures were flat in overnight trading Monday after investors bought the dip in technology shares following recent weakness.
    Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 14 points. S&P 500 futures were little changed, and Nasdaq 100 futures edged 0.1% lower.

    The overnight action followed a tech-led rally that saw the Nasdaq Composite rise 1.9%. Shares of Twitter surged 27% for its best day ever after Elon Musk disclosed a 9.2% passive stake in the social media company.
    The blue-chip Dow rose about 100 points to begin the trading week, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.8%, both posting their second straight day of gains.
    “In the near-term, we believe indiscriminate selling has created attractive entry points, particularly into some high-growth-potential stocks,” Tony DeSpirito, CIO of U.S. fundamental equities at BlackRock, said in a note.
    The new quarter has kicked off after the major averages finished their worst quarter in two years. Investors are awaiting the Federal Reserve meeting minutes Wednesday for further clues on the central bank’s rate-hike path. Meanwhile, the first-quarter corporate earnings season is set to begin next week.
    “Markets have been resilient given the war in Ukraine, continued price pressures, and uncertain global economic outlook, with investors’ ‘buy the dip’ mentality driving equity returns,” said Mark Hackett, Nationwide’s chief of investment research.
    Investors are also keeping an eye on oil prices amid the supply disruptions stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. WTI crude jumped more than 4% and traded back above $100 a barrel Monday.

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    Are labour markets in the rich world too tight?

    LAST MONTH Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, identified the most uncomfortable trade-off in economics. “Today’s labour market”, he said at a press conference, is “tight to an unhealthy level”. In most places and at most times a fall in unemployment, or a rise in the number of people in work, is welcome. But labour markets can become too strained—creating worker shortages that stop production and cause wages to spiral, which can feed in to overall inflation.Mr Powell fears that America has crossed the threshold from good-tight to bad-tight, one reason why the Fed is signalling that higher interest rates are on the way. Increasingly, though, labour markets elsewhere in the rich world are also straining at the seams. Almost nobody saw this coming. When the pandemic struck in 2020, most economists believed that the rich world was in for a long spell of high unemployment, similar to what happened after the financial crisis of 2007-09. In April 2020 America’s unemployment rate hit 14.7%. Had joblessness declined at its post-financial-crisis pace, the unemployment rate in March this year would have been over 13%.In fact it is 3.6%. And America, by many standards, is a laggard. A rise in the number of Americans who have decided they do not want to work at all, and who therefore do not count as unemployed, means that the share of 15-to-64-year-olds with a job is slightly below its level at the end of 2019 (see chart 1). In one-third of rich countries, however, this share is at an all-time high. Even among the other two-thirds, which includes America, the median shortfall in the employment rate is just one percentage point. It adds up to the quickest and broadest-based jobs boom in history.Canada and Germany are among the countries with all-time-high employment rates. The same is true of France, known for its high joblessness. The working-age employment rate in Greece is three percentage points above its level in 2019. Across the OECD group of mostly rich countries there are 20m or so more jobs than had been forecast in June 2020. There have never been so many vacancies: 30m, by The Economist’s count. Even as pricey energy and rising interest rates provoke concern about the world economy, there is little sign from “real-time” indicators that demand for labour is dropping.Why is the jobs recovery so fast? One reason is the nature of the shock that hit the economy in 2020. History shows that financial crunches—tight monetary policy, banking disasters and so on—cause prolonged pain. But economies usually recover speedily from “real” disruptions such as natural disasters, wars and, in this case, a pandemic. In 2005 Louisiana’s unemployment rate soared after Hurricane Katrina but quickly fell back (though part of the adjustment came from people moving away). After the second world war European labour markets rapidly absorbed soldiers returning from the front lines.Government policy has also boosted jobs. In 2020 countries including Australia, Britain, France and Germany launched or expanded job-protection or furlough schemes. At the peak over a fifth of European workers remained technically employed even as they sat at home. When lockdowns lifted, they could quickly return to their roles, rather than having to search and apply for work, which takes time and thus keeps unemployment elevated. America launched a modest job-protection scheme, but its efforts were largely targeted at maintaining peoples’ incomes via stimulus cheques and topped-up unemployment benefits.Stimulus schemes of one sort or another shored up families’ finances. Many also reined in spending in 2020, allowing them to accumulate huge savings. The stockpile is now being spent on everything from consumer goods to housing, raising demand for workers in areas such as online retail and property services (including an extra 200,000 estate agents in America).With labour demand so strong, employers are having not only to increase the number of jobs but also to improve the quality of them. Amazon exaggerated when, last year, it said it would try to be “Earth’s best employer”, but many other companies are promising similar things, whether by offering employees better in-office benefits (such as tastier cafeteria food) or better compensation packages (free college tuition). In 2021 venture investors put more than $12bn into global HR tech startups, roughly 3.6 times the capital invested in them in 2020, according to PitchBook, a data provider.Bad employers are having a tough time. The share of Americans worried about poor job security is near a historical low. In Britain the share of full-time workers on a “zero-hours contract”, where there are no guaranteed hours, soared after the financial crisis but is now falling. Many of the gig-economy firms that grew rapidly in the early 2010s by relying on an army of underemployed workers are now struggling to find staff. Whether in London, Paris or San Francisco, hailing a ride a lot harder than it used to be.The best measure of labour-market tightness is pay, which distils the relative bargaining power of workers and firms into a single number. In some places the situation is clearly getting out of hand. Wheeler County, Nebraska, is a heavily agricultural place a long way from anywhere. In December unemployment fell to around 0.5%. Jobs at a nearby Chipotle Mexican Grill pay $15-16.50 an hour, at least twice the federal minimum. Some firms claim to be raising wages by 30% or more. Some countries still look decidedly un-Nebraskan. Japanese wage growth is easing, not accelerating. In December the “special wage”, which includes winter bonuses and typically makes up about half of total cash wages in that month, fell by 1% year on year. German wage growth is doing nothing special. Canada’s is respectable but it is hard to make the case that things are out of control. On average, however, labour markets across the rich world are clearly getting tighter. America’s is plainly overheating. In February the average wage was 5.8% higher than a year earlier, according to the Atlanta Fed, with the lowest-paid seeing bigger raises (see chart 3). Goldman Sachs, a bank, produces a wage tracker that corrects for various pandemic-related distortions. It is more than 5% higher than a year ago, the fastest rate of increase since the data began in the 1980s. Almost all wage measures in America show unusually rapid growth (by comparison, manufacturing wages in the country rose by an annual average of 4.1% between 1960 and 2019).Before the pandemic, underlying French wage growth was in the region of 1-2% a year. Now it is close to 3%. Italy looks similar. On March 23rd Norway’s central bank noted that “wage inflation has been higher than projected, and wage expectations have risen.” Britain is particularly striking. On Goldman’s measure, underlying pay there is rising at an annual rate of about 5%. Surveys of businesses suggest that even faster growth over the coming year cannot be ruled out. Across the G10 as a whole wages are rising by at least 4% a year.Is this sustainable? To most people wage growth of 4% hardly sounds malign. But the arithmetic is inescapable. At 4% wage growth, labour productivity (ie, the value of what workers produce per hour) must grow by at least 2% a year in order to be consistent with an inflation target of 2%. Businesses would pass on half their extra hourly wage costs to customers in the form of higher prices, but would absorb the other half since they would be selling more goods and services, or producing them more efficiently.Productivity growth of 2% a year is not unachievable, but it would be a lot stronger than it was before the pandemic. Although productivity growth does seem faster than normal, our analysis of data from OECD countries suggests that it falls short of 2%. It may yet rise as companies reap the gains from their large investments in remote-working technologies and digitisation. Hopes of higher productivity, however, must be weighed against fears of still-higher wage growth.If heady wage growth cannot be sustained, how might it fall? One long-floated possibility in those countries with lagging overall employment rates is that people who have left the workforce return, boosting the supply of labour. Fear of covid-19 might eventually fade and child care might become easier to find, easing worker shortages and causing wage growth to fall.This hope is receding, however. Although many Americans have returned to the workforce over the past six months, wage growth has not slowed—in fact, it has sped up. The Economist calculates that as of September there were nearly 1.9m “missing” workers aged 25 to 54, based on participation rates in January 2020 and adjusting for population growth. By March 2022 this had fallen by more than half to about 750,000—or less than two months’ worth of job growth at the recent pace. There are another 1.3m missing older workers, but most are over 65 and likely to have retired permanently (and the number of missing over-65s has recently been growing).It is likely, therefore, that in America and elsewhere labour markets will have to be cooled the old-fashioned way: by central banks raising interest rates, making it a little more attractive to save than spend and thereby choking off demand for labour. The Fed has already raised rates by 0.25 percentage points, and is expected to raise them by a total of 2.5 points this year. America may well prove an example of what happens when policymakers respond to a labour market that has become dangerously hot. More

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    Climate change could cost U.S. $2 trillion each year by the end of the century, White House says

    Floods, drought, wildfires and hurricanes made worse by climate change could cost the U.S. federal budget about $2 trillion each year by the end of the century, the White House said on Monday.
    The analysis by the Office of Management and Budget, which administers the federal budget, also said the U.S. government could spend an additional $25 billion to $128 billion each year in such areas as coastal disaster relief, flood insurance and crop insurance.
    The news comes the same day as the United Nations’ climate science panel’s highly anticipated report, which warned that slashing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels will require greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025.

    Dry cracked earth is visible in an area of Lake Powell that was previously underwater on March 28, 2022 in Page, Arizona. As severe drought grips parts of the Western United States, water levels at Lake Powell dropped to their lowest levels since the lake was created by damming the Colorado River in 1963.
    Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

    Floods, drought, wildfires and hurricanes made worse by climate change could cost the U.S. federal budget about $2 trillion each year — a 7.1% loss in annual revenue — by the end of the century, the White House said in an assessment on Monday.
    The analysis by the Office of Management and Budget, which administers the federal budget, also warned the U.S. government could spend an additional $25 billion to $128 billion each year in areas such as coastal disaster relief, flood insurance, crop insurance, health-care insurance, wildland fire suppression and flooding at federal facilities.

    “The fiscal risk of climate change is immense,” Candace Vahlsing, the OMB’s associate director for climate, and Danny Yagan, its chief economist, wrote in a blog published on Monday.
    “Climate change threatens communities and sectors across the country, including through floods, drought, extreme heat, wildfires, and hurricanes that affect the U.S. economy and the lives of everyday Americans,” they wrote. “Future damages could dwarf current damages if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated.”
    The news comes the same day as the United Nations’ climate science panel’s highly anticipated report, which warned that slashing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels will require greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025.

    More from CNBC Climate:

    The world has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and is on track to experience global temperature rise of 2.4 degrees Celsius by 2100.
    The OMB’s analysis warned that intensifying wildfires could increase federal fire suppression costs by between $1.55 billion and $9.60 billion each year, representing an increase between 78% and 480% by the end of the century. Meanwhile, more frequent hurricanes could drive up annual spending on coastal-disaster response to between $22 billion and $94 billion by 2100.

    Additionally, 12,000 federal buildings across the country could be flooded by 10 feet due to rising sea levels, with total replacement costs of more than $43.7 billion, the analysis said. That scenario would be on the high side, though. A 2021 report from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a range of sea level rise in the U.S. between 0.6 meters (nearly two feet) and 2.2 meters (just over seven feet) by the end of the century.
    President Joe Biden last week released his 2023 budget proposal, which called for nearly $45 billion in new funding for climate change, clean energy and environmental justice programs. The budget, which includes an increase of nearly 60% in climate funding over the 2021 fiscal year, comes as Biden’s core legislation to address climate change is stalled in Congress.
    The climate portion of the $1.75 trillion House-passed bill, called the Build Back Better Act, would be the largest-ever federal clean energy investment and could help the U.S. get about halfway to the president’s pledge to curb emissions in half by 2030, according to the nonpartisan analysis firm Rhodium Group.
    Earlier this year, Biden said he would likely need break up the plan, but maintained that he believes Congress would still pass parts of it, including $555 billion in climate spending.

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    Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Twitter, Starbucks, Tesla and more

    Andrew Burton | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.
    Twitter — The social media company soared 27.1% after a filing revealed that Elon Musk has taken a 9.2% passive stake in the firm worth about $2.9 billion. The purchase came weeks after the Tesla CEO polled his 80-plus million Twitter followers about whether the platform adheres to free speech principles. Musk also recently hinted at starting his own site. The move is sparking speculation among analysts that Musk could take a more active ownership in Twitter or even consider a takeover down the road.

    Tesla — Shares added 5.6% after Tesla reported first-quarter electric vehicle deliveries. The more than 310,000 vehicle deliveries marked a quarterly record, but slightly missed consensus Wall Street estimates. Most analysts attributed the miss to Covid shutdowns in Shanghai, where Tesla has a major factory.
    Starbucks — The coffee chain fell 3.7% following the suspension of its share repurchase program. The decision comes as Howard Schultz returns to the helm as CEO of the company and amid a greater union push from the firm’s baristas.
    JD.com, Netease, Alibaba, Tencent Music – U.S.-listed shares of Chinese companies rallied after China proposed revising confidentiality rules regarding audit oversight. The move could prevent those companies from being delisted in the U.S. JD.com jumped 7.1%, Netease rose 2.4%, Alibaba gained 6.6% and Tencent Music added 10.7%.
    Hertz — Shares of the rental car company surged 10.7% after Hertz announced a partnership with electric vehicle company Polestar. As part of the deal, Hertz will purchase up to 65,000 electric vehicles over the next five years, according to a news release.
    Logitech — The stock rose 7% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the company to a “buy” from “neutral” and said it could see big gains from growing trends toward gaming and videoconferencing.

    Quest Diagnostics – Shares slipped 1.3% after Citi downgraded the diagnostic information services company to neutral from buy, due to uncertainty around its post-pandemic model. Citi cited Quest’s margin outlook this and next year as well as heightened labor pressures and volume declines.
    Baxter — Shares fell 4% after Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to a sell rating from neutral. The firm said the call is due to Baxter’s “over-indexing to headwind variables and numbers being at risk.”
    Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings — The retail stock jumped 15.7% after Wells Fargo upgraded Ollie’s to overweight from equal weight. Wells Fargo said that the stock could prove to be a “coiled spring” after the company has worked through its pandemic-era disruptions.
    — CNBC’s Yun Li, Samantha Subin, Sarah Min, Jesse Pound and Tanaya Macheel contributed reporting.

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    Britain announces plans to mint its own NFT as it looks to 'lead the way' in crypto

    Watch Daily: Monday – Friday, 3 PM ET

    U.K. Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has asked the Royal Mint to create and issue the NFT “by the summer,” a government minister said Monday.
    City Minister John Glen announced a number of steps the U.K. will take to bring digital assets under more regulatory scrutiny.
    He says the government wants Britain to “lead the way” in crypto.

    In this photo illustration a novelty Bitcoin token is photographed on £10 notes.
    Matt Cardy | Getty Images

    LONDON — The U.K. government on Monday announced plans to mint its own non-fungible token, as part of a push toward becoming a “world leader” in the cryptocurrency space.
    Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has asked the Royal Mint — the government-owned company responsible for minting coins for the U.K. — to create and issue the NFT “by the summer,” City Minister John Glen said at a fintech event in London. “There will be more details available very soon,” he added.

    NFTs are digital assets that represent ownership of a virtual item like an artwork or video game avatar using blockchain, the technology that underpins many cryptocurrencies. They’ve gained a lot of traction over the past year thanks to increased adoption from celebrities and large corporations.
    The U.K.’s NFT initiative is part of a broader effort by the government to “lead the way” in crypto, according to Glen. The minister announced a number of steps the U.K. will take to bring digital assets under more regulatory scrutiny, including plans to:

    Bring stablecoins within the U.K.’s existing regulations on electronic payments.
    Consult on a “world-leading regime” for regulating trade in other cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.
    Ask the Law Commission to consider the legal status of blockchain-based communities known as decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs.
    Examine the tax treatment of decentralized finance (DeFi) loans and “staking,” which gives crypto users the ability to earn interest on their savings.
    Establish a Cryptoasset Engagement Group that will be chaired by ministers and host members from U.K. regulators and crypto businesses.
    Explore the application of blockchain technology in issuing debt instruments.

    “We shouldn’t be thinking of regulation as a static, rigid thing,” Glen said. “Instead, we should be thinking in terms of regulatory ‘code’ — like computer code — which we refine and rewrite when we need to.”
    CNBC previously reported on the government’s plans to unveil a regulatory framework for cryptoassets and stablecoins.

    Stablecoins, cryptocurrencies that derive their value from sovereign currencies like the U.S dollar, are a fast-growing but controversial phenomena in the crypto world. Tether, the world’s biggest stablecoin, has a circulating supply of more than $80 billion. But it’s attracted criticism over a lack of transparency around the reserves that back the token. The government is now set to bring stablecoins into the U.K. regulatory system.

    Glen said the government was also “widening” its gaze to look at other aspects of crypto, including so-called Web3, a movement that proposes a more decentralized version of the internet built on blockchain technology.
    “No one knows for sure yet how Web3 is going to look,” Glen said. “But there’s every chance that blockchain is going to be integral to its development.”
    “We want this country to be there leading from the front, seeking out the greatest economic opportunities.”
    Mauricio Magaldi, global strategy director for crypto at the fintech consultancy 11:FS, took a skeptical view on the government’s NFT plans. The decision “seems to be nothing more than a strategic PR-play,” he said in an emailed comment. But “talk of the U.K. becoming a ‘crypto hub’ seems to hold much more promise,” he added.

    Mixed signals

    Industry insiders have been calling for clarity about the U.K.’s position on crypto as policymakers around the world begin taking a closer look at the $2 trillion market.

    Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order urging government-wide coordination when it comes to regulating crypto. The move was seen as broadly positive for the sector.
    Meanwhile, European Union lawmakers recently voted against measures that would have put the future of crypto mining at risk. However, they also passed new rules cracking down on anonymous crypto transfers.
    Back in the U.K., British regulators have taken a harsh tone on digital assets.
    The Financial Conduct Authority has shunned a vast majority of crypto firms applying to be registered with the watchdog, warning it’s worried too many “financial crime red flags” are going unnoticed.
    Last week, the FCA extended a crucial deadline for crypto businesses on a temporary register — which includes Revolut and Copper — to obtain full authorization. Philip Hammond, the former U.K. finance minister, is an advisor to Copper.
    Several companies have been forced to wind down their U.K. crypto operations and move offshore after failing to make it onto the final register, including Blockchain.com, B2C2 and Wirex. Just 33 firms have been approved by the FCA. More

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    Many Americans face big tax bills on 2021 unemployment benefits

    Smart Tax Planning

    Tax was withheld on just 40% of total unemployment benefits paid in 2021, roughly the same share as 2020, according to Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.
    Recipients who opted not to withhold tax may owe money to the federal government and state, or get a smaller tax refund.

    A Miami-Dade County job fair in Miami on Dec. 16, 2021.
    Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    Many Americans who collected unemployment benefits in 2021 may be on the hook for big bills this tax season.
    The federal government and most states treat unemployment benefits as taxable income.

    However, tax wasn’t collected on about 60% of unemployment benefits paid in 2021, according to Andrew Stettner, an unemployment expert and senior fellow at progressive think tank The Century Foundation who analyzed U.S. Department of the Treasury data.

    More from Smart Tax Planning:

    Here’s a look at more tax-planning news.

    Here’s another way to think about it: About 60% of people opted not to withhold tax on those benefits, he said.
    Approximately 25 million people received unemployment benefits in 2021.
    Workers collected $325 billion in total benefits in 2021, Stettner said, citing Treasury data.

    States, which administer the benefits, offer the option to withhold tax at a standard 10% rate. State governments reported just $13.3 billion of tax withholding — roughly 40% of the $32.5 billion that would have been collected if everyone opted to withhold tax, Stettner said.

    “On average, only 40% of people withheld their taxes, and 60% didn’t withhold at all,” Stettner said.
    That’s roughly the same share as in 2020, according to a separate The Century Foundation analysis.
    However, there’s a key difference — Congress authorized a federal tax break on up to $10,200 of benefits, per person, in 2020 as part of the American Rescue Plan, a pandemic relief law. Most states gave the break for states levies, too, or already exempt unemployment compensation and other income from tax.

    As a result, millions of people didn’t owe tax on their 2020 benefits or owed a lesser amount of tax.
    However, a tax break isn’t available for 2021 benefits. That doesn’t mean individuals will necessarily have to write a check to the IRS this tax season — some may get a lower tax refund. Even those who opted for the 10% withholding may owe some money if their annual income lands them in a higher marginal tax bracket.
    The deadline to file a 2021 income-tax return is Monday, April 18. More

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    Stocks making the biggest moves in the premarket: Twitter, Tesla, Starbucks and more

    Take a look at some of the biggest movers in the premarket:
    Twitter (TWTR) – Twitter shares soared 26.1% in the premarket after a Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had taken a 9.2% passive stake in Twitter.

    Tesla (TSLA) – Tesla delivered just over 310,000 vehicles during the first quarter, a record for the electric vehicle maker but below Wall Street consensus estimates. Tesla gained 1% in premarket trading.
    Starbucks (SBUX) – Starbucks has suspended its share repurchase program, in a move it says will allow it to invest in future growth for the coffee chain. The move comes as Howard Schultz returns for a third stint as CEO, replacing the retiring Kevin Johnson. Starbucks fell 2.3% in premarket action
    JPMorgan Chase (JPM) – In his annual letter to shareholders, CEO Jamie Dimon said the bank could face a potential loss of $1 billion from its exposure to Russian investments.
    JD.com (JD), Netease (NTES), Alibaba (BABA), Tencent Music (TME) – U.S.-listed China stocks are rallying in premarket trading after China proposed revising confidentiality rules regarding audit oversight. That could remove an obstacle to U.S.-China cooperation and prevent those companies from being delisted in the U.S. JD.com jumped 5.1%, Netease rose 3.9%, Alibaba gained 4.3% and Tencent Music added 5.2%.
    Hertz (HTZ) – The car rental company announced a new partnership that will see Hertz buy up to 65,000 electric vehicles from electric vehicle maker Polestar over the next five years. Hertz gained 2.3% in the premarket.

    Novartis (NVS) – Novartis announced a reorganization of its business units in a move the Swiss drugmaker could save at least $1 billion annually by 2024. The new structure will integrate the drugmaker’s pharmaceuticals and oncology businesses. Novartis rose 1% in premarket trading.
    General Motors (GM) – Canada will announce investments today in two GM plants in the country, according to a source who spoke to Reuters. The amount of the investments, which includes support for one plant that will produce electric commercial vehicles, is unknown.
    Logitech (LOGI) – Logitech was upgraded to “buy” from “neutral” at Goldman Sachs, which is encouraged by the recent strong financial performance for the maker of computer mice, keyboards and other computer peripheral devices. Logitech jumped 4.3% in the premarket.
    Crox (CROX) – The casual shoe maker’s stock slid 1.9% in premarket trading after Loop Capital downgraded it to “hold” from “buy” and slashed the price target to $80 from $150. Loop said investor sentiment on the stock has shifted, putting it in the “COVID winner” category.

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