Stock market today: Live updates

Check out some of the companies making headlines in premarket trading.

Unity Software — Shares climbed nearly 3% following news that the company would reduce its workforce by 25%, or about 1,800 employees.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Juniper Networks — Juniper Network stock soared more than 23% after a report from The Wall Street Journal said the company was close to finalizing a deal to be bought by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise pulled back more than 9%.

Match Group — The Tinder owner climbed nearly 16% after a report from Reuters said activist investor Elliott Investment Management has built its stake in the company to about $1 billion.

Read the full list here.

— Brian Evans

Shares of Juniper Networks jumped more than 23% in premarket trading Tuesday, continuing to rise after the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday evening that cloud-services provider Hewlett Packard Enterprise is in “advanced talks” to acquire the company for about $13 billion.

A deal between the two companies could be announced as soon as this week, the Journal reported. The acquisition could bolster HPE’s efforts to challenge Cisco, which has long competed with Juniper in the networking equipment market.

Juniper’s stock price underperformed the tech industry last year, losing about 8%. HPE added nearly 10%, on the other hand.

— Pia Singh, Jordan Novet

Netflix shares were down 2% in the premarket after the streaming giant received a downgrade from Citi. Analyst Jason Bazinet cited three reasons for lowering his rating on the stock, including lofty Street expectations that will be hard to meet.

The stock started 2024 on a sour note, losing 0.4%. It rallied 65% in 2023, however.

Shares of major tech-related companies fell in the premarket as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield ticked higher. Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms and Alphabet were all down 0.4%, while Microsoft lost 0.6%.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose 4 basis points to 4.046%.

— Fred Imbert

Japan’s Nikkei 225 hit a fresh 33-year high Tuesday, driven mostly by tech stocks. The index scaled an intraday peak of 33,969.17, its highest level since March 1990.

Top gainers on the Nikkei were chip-related stocks, that tracked gains in U.S. peers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

Semiconductor company Tokyo Electron and chip equipment supplier Advantest climbed as much as 4.87% and 8.36%, respectively.

Video-game company Nintendo was also among the top performers, gaining as much as 4.7%, as news swirled that the company might release a new game console this year.

South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics said it expects to post a 35% drop in operating profit in the fourth quarter of 2023, missing expectations by a wide margin.

Samsung said that for the October-December quarter, operating profit was likely to be 2.8 trillion South Korean won ($2.13 billion), down 35% from the same period a year earlier when the firm reported an operating profit of 4.31 trillion won. Operating profit was 2.43 trillion won in the previous quarter.

The profit forecast fell far short of LSEG’s SmartEstimate of 3.7 trillion won, which is weighted more heavily toward expectations of analysts who have been consistently more accurate.

Fourth-quarter revenue likely fell 4.9% from the same period a year ago to 67 trillion won, the firm said in the statement.

— Sheila Chiang

The headline inflation rate for Japan’s capital city of Tokyo slowed to 2.4% in December, from 2.6% in the month before.

Inflation rate has declined for a second straight month and is at its lowest level in 18 months.

Tokyo’s core inflation — which strips out prices of fresh food — remained unchanged at 2.1% in December, and came in line with expectations.

— Lim Hui Jie

Australia’s retail sales surged 2% in November compared with the previous month, beating expectations from economists polled by Reuters.

The 2% increase was sharply higher than the 1.2% gain expected by the Reuters poll, and also a reversal from the 0.2% fall in October.

“The strong rise suggests that consumers held back on discretionary spending in October to take advantage of discounts in November,” Robert Ewing, ABS head of business statistics at the Australian statistics bureau said.

“Shoppers may have also brought forward some Christmas spending that would usually happen in December,” he added.

— Lim Hui Jie

Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman indicated that the central bank’s interest rate hikes are likely done – but she added that she’s not prepared to begin trimming. 

Bowman spoke at a community bankers conference in South Carolina on Monday, where she highlighted the Fed’s progress on reining in inflation through tight policy.

“Based on this progress, my view has evolved to consider the possibility that the rate of inflation could decline further with the policy rate held at the current level for some time,” she said in prepared remarks.

If inflation continues to decline toward the Fed’s stated 2% goal, Bowman noted “it will eventually become appropriate” to begin the process of dialing back rates.

However, the central bank still has work to do before cuts begin, she said. “In my view, we are not yet at that point,” Bowman added.

Read more about Bowman’s comments here.

–Darla Mercado, Jeff Cox

Check out the companies making headlines in after-hours trading.

• Unity Software — Unity Software shares jumped more than 3% after the maker of game engines used in the Angry Birds and Pokémon Go video games said it’s cutting 25% of its workforce, or about 1,800 workers.
• Microchip Technology — Microchip Technology shares dropped more than 3% after the microcontroller maker cut its fiscal third-quarter revenue forecast, citing a “weakening economic environment.” The company expects a 22% revenue decline in its third quarter, compared to prior guidance of a 15% and 20% drop.
• JetBlue Airways — JetBlue shares rose more than 1% after the company said President and Chief Operating Officer Joanna Geraghty will succeed Robin Hayes as CEO effective Feb. 12.

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min