The main indexes made modest moves to start the new week following last Friday's red-hot reaction to the May jobs report.
Market participants are now looking ahead to the May consumer price index (CPI) – due out ahead of the June 13 open – as the last big data point to be released before the next Fed meeting. But while price action for the major benchmarks was relatively quiet, volatility was seen elsewhere on Wall Street.
On Friday, all three benchmarks notched impressive gains on a mixed May jobs report and news that Congress passed the debt ceiling deal. Today, however, moves were more muted for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.6% at 33,562), the S&P 500 (-0.2% at 4,273) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.1% at 13,229).
U.S. crude futures climb, Bitcoin slumps
Still, there was plenty of volatility seen elsewhere on the Street. U.S. crude futures, for one, were up 4.6% at their session peak after Saudi Arabia said at a weekend meeting between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) that it will cut its oil output by 1 million barrels per day in July. This follows a surprise production cut made by the cartel in April, which will be extended through the end of 2024, the group said Sunday.
Saudi Arabia "made the unilateral decision [to lower output] after OPEC+ countries that collectively account for half the world's oil supply failed to approve additional cartel-wide production limits, agreeing rather to honor previously announced cuts," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers. "The new Saudi cuts are scheduled to kick in during July, which is the peak of the U.S. summer traveling season." Crude oil futures pared some of their earlier gains to end the day up 0.6% at $72.15 per barrel.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin slumped nearly 6% to $25,635 (Bitcoin markets don't close; price taken at 4 pm Eastern) after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed 13 charges against cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao, including one for securities fraud. Other cryptocurrencies fell today, too, including Ethereum (-5.1%) and Dogecoin (-8.6%), while crypto exchange stock Coinbase Global (COIN, -9.1%) also closed lower.
Apple stock pops, then drops on WWDC news
Another notable mover today was Apple (AAPL), which hit a new intraday high of $184.95, before closing the day down 0.8% at $179.58. Shares of the tech stock reacted to several headlines emerging from the company's Worldwide Developers Conference. As of this writing, AAPL unveiled operating systems updates for several of its products and said a FaceTime feature is coming to Apple TV. However, the most anticipated reveal from the blue chip stock was its new virtual/augmented reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, which will go on sale early next year at a price of $3,499.
Meanwhile, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives will also be looking for any artificial intelligence (AI) updates from the Dow stock. While many other tech giants have unveiled AI initiatives, Apple has been quiet, Ives says. "We believe this is about to change as we are expecting Cook & Co. to discuss Apple's AI strategy looking ahead and how the company can integrate and ultimately monetize its customer base around future generative AI coming from Cupertino," the analyst says.
