Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures mixed amid volatile week

CoreWeave (CRWV) may have trapped fresh bears Thursday.

This morning’s pullback is testing the bulls.

The stock is falling about 5% before the bell after Thursday’s dramatic reversal. The stock briefly broke below $60, near its late-July lows, before recovering to finish nearly 6% higher.

That’s a bear trap — a breakdown that reverses, catching traders betting on further losses.

This morning, shares have retraced roughly half the advance from Thursday’s low to the overnight high. For technicians, that puts a potential entry for fresh bulls around the midpoint of the rebound — near $65 and change.

“First of all, this is more sentiment driven. This is not about fundamentals,” BofA Securities senior software analyst Tal Liani told Yahoo Finance when asked what would stop CoreWeave’s selling.

Liani maintained a Buy rating and $140 price target despite the financing concerns, as my colleague Brian Sozzi reported.

The big test remains $60. Holding above it would keep the bear trap intact. A sustained recovery would bring potential resistance around $92–$93 into view, then $120. Losing Thursday’s low at $60 would undermine the bullish setup.

Stock in Michael Saylor’s bitcoin juggernaut Strategy (MSTR) fell more than 3% in pre-market trading on Friday after index provider MSCI announced new eligibility rules that could lead to the removal of the bitcoin giant from its global stock indexes.

MSCI said Thursday it will adopt new rules to exclude certain “non-operating companies” from its indexes, including those whose primary business resembles that of an investment fund rather than a traditional operating company.

Exclusion could include Strategy, the world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin, along with other digital asset treasury companies such as MetaPlanet. Exclusion is expected to force index-tracking funds to sell shares of affected companies.

MSCI said it will publish a final list of affected companies on Nov. 11, with the new rules taking effect after the market closes on Nov. 30.

Strategy, led by executive chairman Saylor, has previously criticized the proposal as discriminatory against digital asset treasury companies. The company currently holds about 4% of bitcoin’s total supply.

More S&P 500 stocks are rising than falling before the bell. Chip stocks are still largely heading south.

Advancers among S&P 500 constituents are outnumbering decliners by more than 2 to 1, with 224 higher, 106 lower and 173 unchanged. S&P 500 futures (ES=F) are edging higher while Nasdaq futures (NQ=F) slip. Both remain negative on the week.

The stealth stock buying seen this morning extends a broader rotation. Through Thursday, 366 of the S&P’s components — 73% — were higher for the week. Since October 6, nearly 70% had advanced, even as the index lost roughly 1%.

Chips remain under pressure.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) is falling over 1%, putting a ninth straight loss in play. Its only previous nine-session losing streak ended in May 2006. The fund subsequently fell another 17% through its July closing low two decades ago.

Meanwhile, Salesforce (CRM) and ServiceNow (NOW) are each adding more than 1% after Thursday’s rallies. Buyers are lifting 33 of 45 stocks in a Yahoo Finance software basket. Software — ex-cybersecurity — has been a source of strength recently, contrasting with the semis trade.

Watch whether that participation survives the opening bell. Continued buying beyond chips would show investors are sticking with alternatives to the struggling leaders.

Shares of Truist Financial (TFC) fell more than 2% pre-market after the regional banking giant posted third quarter profits that fell short of analyst expectations.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender reported adjusted earnings of $1.16 per share, up 12% from a year earlier but below the $1.19 expected by analysts, according to RBC Capital Markets. Reported earnings were $0.56 per share, reflecting a $1.4 billion loss from selling bonds as part of an effort to reposition its balance sheet.

Truist’s stock has lagged its rivals since it was born of a so-called merger of equals between BB&T and SunTrust, which closed in December 2019. The bank has since continued to overhaul parts of its business.

Truist reported net interest income of $3.66 billion in the third quarter, up slightly from a year ago. The bank also said it moved to further simplify operations in the quarter.

Earlier this week, Truist sold $7.7 billion in unsecured consumer loans to private equity giant Carlyle Group. That comes after it sold $5.5 billion in near-prime auto loans to Apollo Global Management last month. (Disclosure: Yahoo is a portfolio company of funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management.)

“We delivered a solid quarter while also taking decisive actions to better position Truist for the future,” the bank’s new CEO Mike Lyons said in a statement.

Yahoo Finance’s Jake Conley reports:

Yields are above multi-decade highs, both gas and diesel prices continue to climb, and critical midterm elections are around the corner.

Adding to pressure on the US economy and the current administration, the world’s two largest hot wars are heating up.

In the Middle East, dual fronts along the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea have seen a resurgence of conflict in recent weeks that heavily disrupted oil flows in the region.

Multiple tankers and container ships in the Strait of Hormuz either caught fire or sank this week in the Iran-dominated waterway. The Washington Institute has tracked more than two dozen attacks recorded since the start of the month.

Read more here,

Yahoo Finance’s Pras Subramanian reports:

After a two-week delay, the Tesla (TSLA) Roadster event went off with a massive bang — a flying one.

The wedge-shaped, cyberpunk-looking Roadster EV appeared in front of an inverted half roller coaster ramp erected at SpaceX’s facility in Waco, Texas. The Roadster cruised halfway up — glued to the ramp using a vacuum fan system — then launched off the ramp upside down and performed flips in the air, using air thrusters to right itself and land on the tarmac.

Tesla stock rose as much as 5.4% during premarket trading on Friday following the Roadster event.

Read more here.