Dow Jones Today: Stock Futures Slightly Lower After Two Days of Record Highs for S&P 500; Walmart Slides After Earnings

Stock futures are slightly lower Thursday morning after two consecutive days of gains for major U.S. indexes.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were each down 0.3% in recent trading. The S&P 500 has hit record highs in each of the last two sessions, while the Dow and Nasdaq both enter today’s session less than 1% away from record highs of their own.

Among the big movers this morning, Walmart (WMT) shares were down nearly 8% after the retail giant released quarterly results that topped expectations but issued a sales outlook that disappointed investors. U.S.-traded shares of Alibaba Group (BABA) jumped more than 10% after the Chinese tech and e-commerce company reported better-than-expected results.

Shares of analytics software provider Palantir (PLTR) were down 4% in premarket trading after plunging 10% yesterday. The stock took a sharp downturn in the final hour of trading Wednesday, tumbling from an all-time high, following a report the Trump administration directed the Pentagon to trim the U.S. defense budget, which could hurt Palantir given how much business the company has with the government.

Mega-cap technology companies were little-changed ahead of the bell. Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG) and Tesla (TSLA) inched higher, while Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META) and Broadcom (AVGO) were down slightly.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which is sensitive to expectations about where interest rates are headed, was at 4.52% this morning, down from 4.54% at Wednesday’s close.

Market participants are awaiting the scheduled release this morning of weekly jobless claims data, as they look for information that could affect the Federal Reserve’s decision-making on interest rates. The minutes from the Fed’s latest meeting, released Wednesday, indicated that the central bank is in no rush to cut its benchmark rate again amid concerns about lingering inflation and uncertainty about the impact of Donald Trump’s economic policies.

Bitcoin was at $97,600, up from an overnight low of around $96,000. Gold futures were up 0.8% at around $2,960 an ounce, trading at record high levels, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were holding steady at around $72.30 a barrel.