Morning Brief

Wall Street is poised for a higher open despite IBM's premarket drubbing

Key Points

IN THE NEWS TODAY

U.S. stock futures were higher this morning, despite a sharp premarket decline in Dow-stock IBM (IBM) on a revenue miss. The Dow was slammed on Tuesday by the 4.7 percent drop in Goldman Sachs (GS) on an earnings miss. (CNBC)

IBM (IBM) saw revenue decline from a year earlier for the 20th consecutive quarter. Profit margins fell across various business units, including ones viewed as future drivers of growth. IBM did slightly beat estimates on first-quarter earnings. (CNBC)

Following Goldman's disappointing results, BlackRock (BLK) beat estimates on earnings but missed on revenue. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley (MS) beat forecasts on earnings and revenue. (CNBC)

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is defending her call for an early election in Parliament today. British lawmakers are expected to vote later today. The pound is steady this morning after surging to a six-and-a-half month high against the dollar on Tuesday. (CNBC)

Democrat Jon Ossoff fell below the 50 percent level needed to claim an outright win in Tuesday's special election in Georgia's 6th congressional district, setting the stage for a runoff in June against top Republican vote-getter Karen Handel. (NY Times)

The Georgia special election for the seat of Tom Price, who left Congress to become HHS secretary, was seen as an early referendum on President Donald Trump, who sees the runoff as a victory for Republicans against the well-funded Ossoff. (CNBC)

Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea not to test the resolve of the U.S. today, promising the military would make an "overwhelming and effective" response to any use of conventional or nuclear weapons. (AP)

Ahead of this week's spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sought to assuage fears that Trump was about to rip up the global economic order or launch a new round of currency and trade wars. (FT)

The Super Bowl winning New England Patriots and Trump friend Tom Brady will be honored at the White House this afternoon. But some of Brady's teammates plan to boycott the event. (Washington Examiner)

Former Patriot star Aaron Hernandez, serving life for a 2013 murder, hanged himself in prison this morning. Hernandez's suicide comes five days after he was acquitted in the 2012 murder of two men in Boston. (Boston Globe)

Authorities said Kori Ali Muhammad stalked the streets of downtown Fresno, California, fatally shooting three white men. Before surrendering to police, he allegedly shouted, "Allahu akbar." (LA Times)

Steve Stephens, accused of recording a murder on video and posting to Facebook, shot himself to death when Pennsylvania State Police were attempting to pull him over, ending a massive manhunt. (NY Times)

The board of 21st Century Fox (FOXA) is expected tomorrow to talk about the fate of Bill O'Reilly at Fox News. Pressure increased Tuesday when another woman reported sexual harassment allegations. (NY Times)

Adidas is apologizing for sending out a marketing email praising customers who "survived" this year's Boston Marathon. People took to social media to blast the sportswear giant for being insensitive in light of the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon attack. (AP)
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United (UAL) CEO Oscar Munoz met with the Chinese consulate in Chicago over the possible impact to bookings from the passenger removal fiasco, but it's too early to tell if business in China had been hurt yet. (Reuters)

Baidu has opened up its driverless car technology for automakers to use as the Chinese internet giant aims to be the default platform for autonomous driving in a bid to challenge the likes of Google and Tesla. (CNBC)

BY THE NUMBERS

The Energy Department is out with its weekly report on oil and gasoline inventories at 10:30 a.m. ET. The Fed releases its Beige Book region-by-region assessment of the U.S. economy at 2 p.m. ET.

Fewer home buyers jumped into the mortgage market last week, even though interest rates hit their lowest levels since November 2016. Total mortgage applications decreased 1.8 percent.

After-the-bell earnings reports include quarterly numbers from Dow stock American Express (AXP), as well as CSX (CSX), eBay (EBAY), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Qualcomm (QCOM), and United Rentals (URI).

STOCKS TO WATCH

Navient (NAVI) has agreed to buy a roughly $6.9 billion student loan portfolio from JPMorgan (JPM). The student loan servicer gets $3.2 billion in private loans and about $3.7 billion in federal loans.

UBS (UBS) was fined about $2 million by Switzerland's stock exchange for a late release of price sensitive information. The fine stems from a change in strategy announced by the bank in October of 2012.

Yahoo (YHOO) exceeded expectations on earnings revenue. This should be Yahoo's last report in its current form, with the company expecting the sale of its core internet business to Verizon (VZ) to close in June.

Broadcom (AVGO) may team with a Japanese government-backed fund to launch a joint bid for Toshiba's semiconductor unit, according to Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) beat estimates on earnings and revenue. The surgical products maker also raised its 2017 forecast for the number of procedures performed using its da Vinci surgical robots.

WATERCOOLER

Apple (AAPL) just made iMovie, the entire iWork suite and GarageBand free for everyone. Those applications have already been free for folks who purchased a new iOS or macOS device in the past several years. (CNBC)

The new Samsung smartphone, the Galaxy S8, launches this week. And CNBC's review said the screen is gorgeous. The device is future-proofed with support for next-generation high-speed wireless.