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Bed Bath & Beyond shares slide

Embattled home retailer Bed Bath & Beyond delivered a warning to investors on Thursday noting that while improvements are being made the outlook is cloudy.

Bed Bath Beyond Inc.

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2.41

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ADP jobs data surprises

A surprisingly strong read for private sector jobs hints to what may a divide among the companies that are ramping up layoffs and those still in need of key workers.

Futures at a glance

U.S. stock futures are up and down ahead of the opening bell on Thursday as gold plunges and oil rises.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down roughly 17 points, or 0.05%, while S&P and Nasdaq futures are approximately 0.02% and 0.10% higher, respectively.

Over the last five days, the Dow remains is now up around 0.13%, the S&P is also up around 0.13%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq is still roughly 0.22% beneath the redline.

In commodities, West Texas Intermediate crude futures spiked 1.3% to $74.12 a barrel, as gold slipped 0.56% to $1,848.60 an ounce.

Amazon increases job cuts 18,000 adding to tech layoff wave

Amazon said Wednesday that it will be cutting about 18,000 positions, the largest amount of layoffs in the company’s history.

The number of jobs getting cut is larger than originally expected.

Amazon’s global workforce has 1.5 million employees.

Markets to focus on job-related reports

A busy morning of economic data coming up Thursday with jobs being a major focus over the next two days.

Thursday morning, the payroll processing firm ADP will release its National Employment report for December. 

Economists anticipate an increase of 150,000 private-sector jobs, up from 127,000 new jobs added in October.

That 150,000 forecast is less than the 200,000 nonfarm jobs that the Labor Department is expected to say the economy added in December. That comes out Friday morning. 

The Labor Department will release the number of new jobless claims that were filed last week. Expectations are for 225,000, unchanged from the prior week. 

Continuing claims, which track the total number of workers collecting unemployment benefits, are expected to slip to 1.708 million, down slightly from a more-than 10-month high the prior week.

 The Commerce Department is out with the U.S. trade balance for November. The monthly deficit in goods and services is expected to narrow to $73.0 billion.

October’s deficit of $78.2 billion was the highest since June. 

The S&P Global’s final services PMI for December will be released. The preliminary reading of 44.4 released two weeks ago saw the index in contraction territory for a fifth month:

Moody’s report warns of “slowcession” in US

Moody’s has issued a report saying the U.S. economy will hit a rough patch, and the most likely outlook is a “slowcession.”

That is where the economic growth grinds to a near standstill but that never slips into reverse, according to a Moody’s Analytics baseline forecast.

The outlook report, released by Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi, said the U.S. economy is sure to have a difficult 2023 as the Federal Reserve continues to aggressively push up interest rates to quell the painfully high inflation.

Even if a strong labor market keeps the country’s economy from falling into a full-blown recession, investors and consumers will still experience the hardship of a slowdown, according to the report.

The report further predicted that all quarterly economic growth rates of the country will not stand upon 1% year on year in 2023, and may not exceed 2% until the third quarter of 2024.

Reuters contributed to this post.

DOJ to seize $465 million of Robinhood shares tied to Bankman-Fried

U.S. prosecutors are in the process of seizing shares of Robinhood Markets tied to the founder of FTX.

The situation involves 56 million shares of Robinhood, worth $465 million and who has claim to them.

Bankrupt crypto firm BlockFi, FTX and liquidators in Antigua have all laid claim to the Robinhood stock, as well as FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Cryptocurrency prices for Bitcoin, Ethereum are lower and Dogecoin is higher on Thursday

Bitcoin was trading around $16,000, after trading higher in three of the last four days.

For the week, Bitcoin has gained nearly 2%, but is down more than 61% in the past year.

Ethereum was trading around $1,200, after gaining more than 5% in the past week.

Dogecoin was trading at 7 cents, after gaining more than 3% in the past week.

Oil rebounds on weaker dollar

Oil prices rebounded on Thursday amid dollar weakness and as investors jumped back in after two sessions of steep losses.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures traded around $74.00 a barrel.

Brent crude futures traded around $79.00 a barrel.

Big declines in the previous two days were driven by worries about a potential global recession, according to Reuters.

Economic data weighed on prices as U.S. manufacturing contracted further in December. 

At the same time, a survey from the U.S. Labor Department showed job openings had fallen less than expected, raising concerns that the Federal Reserve would use the tight labor market as a reason to keep interest rates higher for longer.

Gasoline prices continues to rise

The nationwide price for a gallon of gasoline bumped up on Thursday to $3.285, according to AAA.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline on Wednesday was $3.26.

A year ago, the price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.293.

One week ago, a gallon of gasoline cost $3.159. A month ago, that same gallon of gasoline cost $3.403.

Gas hit an all-time high of $5.016 on June 14.

Diesel slipped lower, remaining below $5.00 per gallon to $4.685, but that is still a far cry from the $3.573 of a year ago.

Sony, Honda unveil their joint-venture EV prototype

Sony made a splash in last Vegas at the annual Consumer Electronics Show by unveiling a new high-tech prototype car.

It will be produced in partnership with Honda.

The vehicle which glided out on stage at the CES, will be called the Afeela.

The partnership was first announced in March and named Sony Honda Mobility.