Dow slips as investors anticipate Friday’s jobs report

Shares of Coinbase jumped more than 10% in premarket trading on Thursday after BlackRock announced it would partner with the cryptocurrency exchange to bring crypto trading to top clients.

The partnership will initially focus on bitcoin, BlackRock said. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager.

—Carmen Reinicke

Weekly jobless claims rose by 6,000 to 260,000 for the week ending July 30, according to a Labor Department report.

Stock futures remained largely flat after the report. Investors will now await the June nonfarm payrolls report scheduled for Friday.

—Carmen Reinicke

Tesla shares rose more than 1% in premarket trading on Thursday ahead of a possible approval of a 3-for-1 stock split. The company formally proposed the stock split in a proxy statement filed in June. There will be a vote on the split at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting today.

—Carmen Reinicke

Sunrun shares rose more than 5% in premarket trading on Thursday following the company’s second quarter results.

The residential solar installer reported revenue of $584.6 million for the three-month period. Analysts polled by StreetAccount expected $501.5 million in revenue.

Sunrun said its total number of customers jumped 21% year-on-year to 724,177.

Several companies released quarterly results on Thursday before the bell, sending shares ahead of the market open.

Eli Lilly missed estimates and lost almost 4%. Paramount Global also fell around 4% despite reporting better than expected results. Restaurant brands performed better and grew by around 1%.

Here’s what other stocks moved in premarket trading.

—Carmen Reinicke

Alibaba shares rose 7% in premarket trading after the company reported earnings that beat Wall Street expectations.

Although the report was ahead of estimates, it was the first quarterly release where Alibaba showed stable growth. The company faced a number of headwinds in the quarter due to Covid and the global economy.

—Carmen Reinicke

The Bank of England raised interest rates by half a percentage point on Thursday, the sixth consecutive hike and the first hike of this magnitude since 1997, in a bid to calm inflation.

UK inflation is also at its highest level in 40 years and is expected to continue to rise. The bank now expects headline inflation to peak at around 13% in October, meaning its rate hikes will likely continue.

—Carmen Reinicke

Bernstein strategists led by Sarah McCarthy said they expect the market to drop another leg down in the near term.

“While the longer-term sentiment indicators are bearish enough to have a positive view on equities on a 12-month horizon, in the short term we believe the market is likely to have another leg down as we are only at the start of the earnings downgrade cycle, and we have yet to see any significant outflows from equity funds,” they said in a note to clients on Thursday.

The comments come as the market enjoys a sharp rebound from the mid-June lows. Since then, the S&P 500 is up 14.25%.

U.S. stock futures pointed to a muted open on Thursday as the market took a break from a rally in the previous session. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose less than 0.1%, along with S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures.

—Fred Imbert

European stocks were subdued on Thursday as uncertainty returned after the previous session’s gains.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.2% by mid-morning. Retail stocks were the best performers, gaining 2.2%, while telecommunications fell 0.5%.

Britain’s FTSE fell ahead of the Bank of England’s monetary policy decision later on Thursday. The central bank is expected to raise interest rates by 50 basis points, its biggest increase since 1995.

Alibaba is expected to report its fiscal first quarter results before the market opens and analysts expect the Chinese e-commerce giant to post its first-ever revenue drop.

Alibaba is expected to post revenue of 203.19 billion yuan ($30 billion) for the June quarter, down 1.2% from a year ago, according to Refinitiv’s consensus forecast.

Alibaba has faced a number of headwinds, from a tighter regulatory environment in China to a resurgence of Covid in the world’s second-largest economy that has led to major cities being locked down. These factors have hit the Chinese economy, dampening advertising budgets and consumer spending, which will likely weigh on Alibaba’s June quarter results.

Still, analysts expect the company to return to growth in the coming quarters. Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba rose more than 4% before earnings.

—Arjun Kharpal

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said now is a good time to buy gold as signs point to a recovery, according to analysis by commodities trader Larry Williams.

The “Mad Money” host explained Williams’ analysis by looking at weekly gold action from 2014 and data on the positioning of small speculators in gold from the Commitments of Traders report. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Gold prices typically peak soon after small speculators get too bullish on the precious metal, and bottom when small speculators are too bearish, according to Williams.

“The charts, as interpreted by the legendary Larry Williams, suggest that the general public is massively abandoning gold and they believe this makes it the perfect time to buy,” Cramer said.

—Abigail Ng, Krystal Hur

Stocks are volatile and bonds haven’t fared any better for much of this year, with US investment grade bonds tumbling in 2022.

But analysts have recently been bullish on income investing as yields start to climb again.

Here are some ways the pros suggest investors position their portfolios for diversification and protection against market volatility as well as seek higher returns as inflation continues to rise. Pro subscribers can read the story here.

—Weizhen Tan

Fortinet shares fell more than 9% in extended trading after the cybersecurity company released its quarterly results, which included free cash flow of $283.5 million, against FactSet estimates of 337.2 millions of dollars. Services revenue also missed the estimates.

Other cybersecurity stocks also fell after hours. CrowdStrike was down slightly by 1% and Palo Alto Networks was down more than 1%.

—Tanaya Macheel

Walmart began laying off company employees about a week after the retail giant slashed its profit outlook and warned of a pullback in consumer discretionary spending due to inflation. The company described the layoffs as a way to “better position the company for a strong future” in a statement to CNBC. The shares fell slightly less than 1% after hours.

—Tanaya Macheel

Shares of luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid Group fell 11.7% in extended trading after the company slashed full-year production targets for the second time to 6,000. The original forecast was for 20 000. The company also reported a quarterly loss of 33 cents per share.

—Tanaya Macheel