Here are the top news, trends and analysis investors need to start their trading day:
1. Stock futures lose momentum as 10-year Treasury yield hits three-year high
Traders on the NYSE floor, April 7, 2022.
Source: New York SE
Wall Street was set for a mixed open Friday. US stock futures lost momentum as the 10-year Treasury yield rose to a three-year high after the Federal Reserve signaled earlier in the week it needed more aggressive anti-inflation measures. Tech stocks suffered the brunt of the accompanying surge in Treasury yields, sending the Nasdaq down more than 2.5% by Thursday’s close to break a three-week winning streak. The S&P 500 also followed its first weekly loss in four weeks, down 1% Monday through Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down nearly 0.7% so far this week, marking its second straight weekly loss. Next week the banks will start the last quarterly reporting season.
2. Bond yields continue Fed-driven rally; Oil headed for weekly losses
The 10-year Treasury yield trended higher on Friday, surpassing the previous day’s high of 2.667% through March 2019 and holding above the 2-year yield. They turned back last week for the first time since 2019.
Another key government bond yield spread — the 5-year and the 30-year — remained either side of Friday’s inverted after reversing last week for the first time since 2006. The inversions are significant because they have historically occurred before economic recessions.
US oil prices edged up Friday but stayed below $100 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil is down more than 3% so far this week, after falling about 13% last week as the US announced its largest-ever release from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve and International Energy Agency member nations braced themselves for the release Efforts to combat rising oil and gasoline prices followed.
3. Russian missile attack on Ukrainian train station kills over 30 people
Ukrainian police inspect the remains of a large rocket with the words “for our children” in Russian next to the main building of a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, which was used for civilian evacuations and a rocket attack killed at least 35 people, April 8, 2022 .
Fadel Senna | AFP | Getty Images
More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a Russian rocket attack on a train station in eastern Ukraine on Friday. The train station was packed with evacuees waiting to travel to safer parts of the war-torn country. Ukrainian leaders warned that fighting in the Donbass region, where Russia has been involved in military operations for years, is likely to resemble World War II battles. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has admitted that Russian forces, not expecting such fierce resistance, suffered “significant casualties” in their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
4. Twitter plans Elon Musk Q&A as Tesla CEO opens new car plant in Texas
According to The Washington Post, Twitter is planning a Q&A session with Elon Musk, the social network’s largest shareholder and future board member, citing internal company news. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced the town hall meeting in a company-wide email after a week of internal outrage that the outspoken Tesla and SpaceX CEO was damaging company culture and making their jobs more difficult, the Post reported.
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk speaks at the grand opening ceremony of the Tesla Giga Texas Manufacturing “Cyber Rodeo” April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas.
Susanne Cordeiro | AFP | Getty Images
Musk, the world’s richest person, spoke Thursday night at a grand opening event for the electric carmaker’s new $1.1 billion factory near Austin Airport in Texas. The CEO said at the event that Tesla is aiming to produce 500,000 units of the Model Y in Austin in a single year, and the company also hopes to start production of its cybertruck there next year. Musk opened a new Tesla factory in Germany two weeks ago.
5. Peter Thiel calls Warren Buffett a “sociopathic grandpa from Omaha”
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund, gestures during his speech during the Bitcoin 2022 conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on April 7, 2022 in Miami, Florida.
Marco Bello | Getty Images
Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel told a Bitcoin conference Thursday that Warren Buffett heads an “enemy list” of people trying to stop the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Thiel called the legendary investor a “sociopathic grandpa from Omaha,” referring to the city of Nebraska where Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is headquartered. Thiel also lumped JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink as part of the “gerontocracy” that rules global finance. The Miami tirade is Thiel’s latest and boldest public attack on the people he believes are standing in the way of Bitcoin’s progress, in which he has been heavily invested.
– CNBC reporters Sarah Min, Natasha Turak, Lora Kolodny and Jennifer Elias as well as Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
— Join the CNBC Investing Club now to follow Jim Cramer’s every stock move. Follow the broader market action like a pro on CNBC Pro.