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Blackstone CEO On Fitch Downgrade, Reaching $1 Trillion Milestone, And More

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview with Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX) Chairman, CEO & Co-Founder Steve Schwarzman ……

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Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview with Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX) Chairman, CEO & Co-Founder Steve Schwarzman and CNBC’s Becky Quick that aired on “Squawk Box” (M-F, 6AM- 9AM ET) today, Friday, August 4. The full interview will be available on “Squawk Pod” today.

Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman On Reaching $1 Trillion Milestone, Real Estate And Economy

BECKY QUICK: Private equity firm Blackstone crossed the $1 trillion mark in assets under management earlier this summer. That’s a far cry from the $400,000, the firm’s Chairman, the CEO and the co-founder Steve Schwarzman started with back in the 1980s. Taking a look at what else has been happening with this, I sat down with Schwarzman at a “Squawk Box” exclusive that covered a lot of ground. We went through artificial intelligence, we talked about politics, we talked about real estate. Also his and other Wall Street leaders thoughts on the Fitch downgraded the U.S. rating series. We started with the road to $1 trillion.

SCHWARZMAN: Well, it’s a long journey. When we started in 1985, there weren’t diversified private equity firms. Basically, there were just about seven or eight firms that just did leveraged buyouts. And when we started, we I was worried that if you just did one thing, because there are no patents in finance, we had a strategy of wanting to go into other areas as long as it was really exciting for the investors, people we could raise money from.

QUICK: So constant innovation basically changing.

SCHWARZMAN: We started to have an innovation machine. And I thought it was just necessary. And we were the only people who wanted to do that and so we got really lucky. We were good at figuring out what was next, you could sort of see it. We went into real estate in 1991, ‘92 at the bottom of a real estate collapse and now we’ve become the largest real estate investor in the world.

We went into hedge funds in the late 80s and that proved to be a really good thing and the debt business in 1998 before almost everybody else was doing that. And we’ve just had one thing after another and each one I look at as an individual opportunity, no grand strategy of exactly where we go, but our job was to create new products and great returns with very minimum risk.

QUICK: Steve, you mentioned that you are the largest owner of real estate and there are people who look at that and say, oh no commercial real estate in particular is a real problem spot and that’s been the area that even though a lot of issues in the financial markets have worked out, people look to that to say that’s going to be the next big problem. What do you say when people say, what do you do with this? Are you in trouble?

SCHWARZMAN: Well, the answer is it’s a great area, but not all parts of it are great. So the part that reflects what you were just asking about is in the office area. And today, 20% nationally of offices are empty because people haven’t come back to work and at that level, office buildings are no longer really viable from an equity perspective. Now the new ones really are.

People want to be in those but if it’s 10 or 15 years old, then you have that problem. We have tons of office buildings at the financial crisis, 70% of what we owned. Today in the United States, we only own 2% of that problem area. The rest of what we own is where real estate is really terrific. Warehouses, for example, are about 40% of what we own. They’re going up 12 to 14% a year in rents.

Hard to imagine that that’s a problem because it isn’t. There are other areas in real estate like data centers, which are literally exploding with growth. Rents are going really high. So what we find in real estate, they’re good neighborhoods, in effect, and some really not good ones and our portfolio is hugely biased to the good areas.

QUICK: When did you see the problems with commercial real estate with the office buildings and say we’ve got to get out of this?

SCHWARZMAN: It started in the late teens and we were finding that the cash flows coming off of those buildings weren’t what they used to be, the cost of running them, capital expenditures, other things and we decided that we should really lighten up and we did. We had a huge switch of we switched out of shopping centers around 2015. And so part of the art of really being terrific in the real estate business is knowing which sub asset classes to be in. So resort hotels, which we also have a bunch of, you know, I don’t know what they call it, is it revenge spending?

QUICK: Yes.

SCHWARZMAN: After the pandemic, we made a profit I think of over 10 times our money in Las Vegas with a wonderful hotel. And so if you’re consistently in the right place at the right time, real estate, which is the second biggest asset class in the world is is really wonderful place to be.

QUICK: I remember what was it a year and a half ago I think, you started talking to your businesses about the potential for a downturn and making sure that all of your companies were really kind of getting their things in order and making sure that they were ready to go if the cycle turned down, if interest rates went higher. What are you telling those companies right now, what do you see?

SCHWARZMAN: Well, we were right on all that. You know, we had a banking crisis over the last few months and being conservative, and having good financing was the way to go. The world is changing somewhat now as you know. Instead of really going into recession, U.S. growth was 2.4% in the last quarter and it shocked almost everyone. And so the U.S. economy is more resilient. But what’s really fascinating is how much inflation has gone down.

And if you remember, my partner, Jon Gray goes on your show periodically. And we’ve been talking early that inflation was way more than the government was reporting. I think that was true. And then we started talking about the fact that inflation was going down much more than the government thought. And we’re seeing it in our companies.

And I guess there was just reported 3% inflation that in no way surprised us. And so, it looks like the Fed is actually doing a pretty remarkable job contrary to what people might have thought and if inflation continues to go down, that we have full employment, then we may be able to skirt a recession.

Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman On Fitch Downgrade: The Numbers Justify It, Regrettably

QUICK: Several big investors have looked at the downgrade that Fitch gave to the United States long term debt. Kind of a — saying this is an odd time for it. Fitch did make some good points in why they were downgrading out of the things that have happened over the last two decades. What are your thoughts on the downgrade and what it means?

SCHWARZMAN: Well, nobody expected it. That’s the first. Secondly, the numbers justified regrettably, you know, we’ve had an explosion of debt since the global financial crisis and we don’t appear to have a lot of discipline going forward. We’re running huge deficits now. So on the numbers, you can understand why they did it. On the other hand, as Jamie said, because Jamie’s always opinionated I must say, you know, the U.S. is the U.S. We are the reserve currency.

We do defend a large part of the world including people who have triple As and when there’s a crisis in the world, they buy our securities. Now that doesn’t last forever if you don’t keep some discipline. And so in a way, it’s a bit of a shot across the bow. On the other hand, people forget it’s actually a split rating. Moody’s and Standard Reports have historically have been two major agencies. One is AAA. One is AA+. I agree it’s not going to make a huge difference in really any way for the debt markets. But it is a little shocking when somebody just wakes up and says, I’m not so enthusiastic about your system.

QUICK: You’ve been a big donor to politics over the years since we’re talking Washington now why don’t we jump into that. You had said after the 2022 midterm elections, that you thought it was time for new leadership. And I guess you’re referring to President, former President Trump, President Biden, think they’re getting a little bit older. Have you made any decisions about who you’re backing for this next election?

SCHWARZMAN: Oh I’m sort of watching the thing with fascination. You know, as, as I said, I think it’s time for a new generation of people to take that slot. It’s not the easiest job in the world. We all watch this and the demands on people in that position are frankly unbelievable and I think you need a certain amount of resiliency and when you’re approaching your 80s, I’m not sure that that’s the exact kind of position to be in to have those demands made on you.

In terms of myself, I’m just watching the whole thing because it’s it’s like a, it’s like a really amazing thing. I mean, you have a, I guess it was somewhere around 60, 65% of Americans don’t want the President to run and 55% or so that don’t want the former president to run. Something’s going to happen here. And unbelievably, if you look at where we were 2015 at this time for the national election, the number one person was Scott Walker. The number two was Jeb Bush talking on the Republican side.

And then number three was Rudy Giuliani. And I think by the end of the second primary, they were all gone and so we’re way ahead of a presidential election, year and a quarter and my observation in America is pretty volatile. And you never quite know exactly what’s going to happen except there’s always a lot of drama.

QUICK: A lot of drama for sure and I think we have more of that to come. Steve, back in February of 2019, I got to go with you to MIT where you made a huge donation for artificial intelligence and really beefing things up because you were concerned about what China was doing with artificial intelligence and the potential for the United States to fall behind. You wanted to make sure that we didn’t do that. Where are we in this race right now? And what do you think of all the developments in AI this year?

SCHWARZMAN: Well, what I’d say to start is that the call on focusing on artificial intelligence, you know, starting myself in 2015 and doing that large MIT donation to start their new College of Computing and doing something allied to that with ethics in AI at Oxford turned out to be the right calls because that’s what’s on everybody’s mind now.

What I’d say with AI, this is one of the most exciting developments of a lifetime and AI isn’t going to just be able to write poems for somebody’s birthday, it’s gonna be part of everyone’s life. It’s going to change the way organizations run. It’s gonna result in an explosion of discoveries in medical science and drugs. It’s going to change how education is done, it can be customized and basically be done around the world. It’s going to change the profitability of certain companies.

At Blackstone, you know, we’re just totally focused on this. We have a data science department of 50 people. We have 250 portfolio companies, I just had a meeting with 100 largest and made it clear to everybody that, you know, this is a first mover advantage kind of technology where if we get there first with our companies then they’ll be much better positioned than somebody who shows up five years later.

And what’s interesting to me now is the major companies in this field, Microsoft, Google, others are all not only cooperating with the U.S. government, they’re pushing regulation because they really don’t want bad things to happen with the rapid introduction of the technology.

I think what’s going to happen is you’ll ultimately have some type of global regulation, something like a supranational institution that can audit what people are doing. Think about an analogy of whether it’s the World Trade Organization or World Health Organization, but with more of a financial and auditing function to make sure that what people are developing really is safe.

QUICK: Will China try and flout the rules as they’ve done with the World Health Organization, the WTO to this point, or do you think they’ll come into line too?

SCHWARZMAN: Well, it’s hard to know one the West and China now have such a complex relationship, that it’s difficult to predict. What I’d say is that the Chinese are very concerned about this type of technology because they don’t have an open society the way we do. So they’re already trying to control this and, you know, there may be an opportunity to have the world operate together on this because you don’t want adverse things that could happen to happen. That that may be a bit of a Pollyanna view. But it’s an important thing to get this right.

QUICK: You can check out the “Squawk Pod” for the full interview with Steve Schwarzman. That will be on your feed today.

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Shakira’s net worth

After 12 albums, a tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth more than 4 decades into her care…

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March 14, 2024

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Shakira’s considerable net worth is no surprise, given her massive popularity in Latin America, the U.S., and elsewhere. 

In fact, the belly-dancing contralto queen is the second-wealthiest Latin-America-born pop singer of all time after Gloria Estefan. (Interestingly, Estefan actually helped a young Shakira translate her breakout album “Laundry Service” into English, hugely propelling her stateside success.)

Since releasing her first record at age 13, Shakira has spent decades recording albums in both Spanish and English and performing all over the world. Over the course of her 40+ year career, she helped thrust Latin pop music into the American mainstream, paving the way for the subsequent success of massively popular modern acts like Karol G and Bad Bunny.

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Shakira, the barefoot belly dancer of Barranquilla, was unveiled at the city's waterfront. The statue was commissioned by the city's former mayor and other leadership.

Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images

In December 2023, a 21-foot-tall beachside bronze statue of the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer was unveiled in her Colombian hometown of Barranquilla, making her a permanent fixture in the city’s skyline and cementing her legacy as one of Latin America’s most influential entertainers.

After 12 albums, a plethora of film and television appearances, a highly publicized tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth? What does her income look like? And how does she spend her money?

Related: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's net worth: How the new TKO Board Member built his wealth from $7

How much is Shakira worth?

In late 2023, Spanish sports and lifestyle publication Marca reported Shakira’s net worth at $400 million, citing Forbes as the figure’s source (although Forbes’ profile page for Shakira does not list a net worth — and didn’t when that article was published).

Most other sources list the singer’s wealth at an estimated $300 million, and almost all of these point to Celebrity Net Worth — a popular but dubious celebrity wealth estimation site — as the source for the figure.

A $300 million net worth would make Shakira the third-richest Latina pop star after Gloria Estefan ($500 million) and Jennifer Lopez ($400 million), and the second-richest Latin-America-born pop singer after Estefan (JLo is Puerto Rican but was born in New York).

Shakira’s income: How much does she make annually?

Entertainers like Shakira don’t have predictable paychecks like ordinary salaried professionals. Instead, annual take-home earnings vary quite a bit depending on each year’s album sales, royalties, film and television appearances, streaming revenue, and other sources of income. As one might expect, Shakira’s earnings have fluctuated quite a bit over the years.

From June 2018 to June 2019, for instance, Shakira was the 10th highest-earning female musician, grossing $35 million, according to Forbes. This wasn’t her first time gracing the top 10, though — back in 2012, she also landed the #10 spot, bringing in $20 million, according to Billboard.

In 2023, Billboard listed Shakira as the 16th-highest-grossing Latin artist of all time.

Shakira performed alongside producer Bizarrap during the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards Gala in Seville.

Photo By Maria Jose Lopez/Europa Press via Getty Images

How much does Shakira make from her concerts and tours?

A large part of Shakira’s wealth comes from her world tours, during which she sometimes sells out massive stadiums and arenas full of passionate fans eager to see her dance and sing live.

According to a 2020 report by Pollstar, she sold over 2.7 million tickets across 190 shows that grossed over $189 million between 2000 and 2020. This landed her the 19th spot on a list of female musicians ranked by touring revenue during that period. In 2023, Billboard reported a more modest touring revenue figure of $108.1 million across 120 shows.

In 2003, Shakira reportedly generated over $4 million from a single show on Valentine’s Day at Foro Sol in Mexico City. 15 years later, in 2018, Shakira grossed around $76.5 million from her El Dorado World Tour, according to Touring Data.

Related: RuPaul's net worth: Everything to know about the cultural icon and force behind 'Drag Race'

How much has Shakira made from her album sales?

According to a 2023 profile in Variety, Shakira has sold over 100 million records throughout her career. “Laundry Service,” the pop icon’s fifth studio album, was her most successful, selling over 13 million copies worldwide, according to TheRichest.

Exactly how much money Shakira has taken home from her album sales is unclear, but in 2008, it was widely reported that she signed a 10-year contract with LiveNation to the tune of between $70 and $100 million to release her subsequent albums and manage her tours.

Shakira and JLo co-headlined the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Florida.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

How much did Shakira make from her Super Bowl and World Cup performances?

Shakira co-wrote one of her biggest hits, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” after FIFA selected her to create the official anthem for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. She performed the song, along with several of her existing fan-favorite tracks, during the event’s opening ceremonies. TheThings reported in 2023 that the song generated $1.4 million in revenue, citing Popnable for the figure.

A decade later, 2020’s Superbowl halftime show featured Shakira and Jennifer Lopez as co-headliners with guest performances by Bad Bunny and J Balvin. The 14-minute performance was widely praised as a high-energy celebration of Latin music and dance, but as is typical for Super Bowl shows, neither Shakira nor JLo was compensated beyond expenses and production costs.

The exposure value that comes with performing in the Super Bowl Halftime Show, though, is significant. It is typically the most-watched television event in the U.S. each year, and in 2020, a 30-second Super Bowl ad spot cost between $5 and $6 million.

How much did Shakira make as a coach on “The Voice?”

Shakira served as a team coach on the popular singing competition program “The Voice” during the show’s fourth and sixth seasons. On the show, celebrity musicians coach up-and-coming amateurs in a team-based competition that eventually results in a single winner. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Shakira’s salary as a coach on “The Voice” was $12 million.

Related: John Cena's net worth: The wrestler-turned-actor's investments, businesses, and more

How does Shakira spend her money?

Shakira doesn’t just make a lot of money — she spends it, too. Like many wealthy entertainers, she’s purchased her share of luxuries, but Barranquilla’s barefoot belly dancer is also a prolific philanthropist, having donated tens of millions to charitable causes throughout her career.

Private island

Back in 2006, she teamed up with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame and Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz to purchase Bonds Cay, a 550-acre island in the Bahamas, which was listed for $16 million at the time.

Along with her two partners in the purchase, Shakira planned to develop the island to feature housing, hotels, and an artists’ retreat designed to host a revolving cast of artists-in-residence. This plan didn’t come to fruition, though, and as of this article’s last update, the island was once again for sale on Vladi Private Islands.

Real estate and vehicles

Like most wealthy celebs, Shakira’s portfolio of high-end playthings also features an array of luxury properties and vehicles, including a home in Barcelona, a villa in Cyprus, a Miami mansion, and a rotating cast of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Philanthropy and charity

Shakira doesn’t just spend her massive wealth on herself; the “Queen of Latin Music” is also a dedicated philanthropist and regularly donates portions of her earnings to the Fundación Pies Descalzos, or “Barefoot Foundation,” a charity she founded in 1997 to “improve the education and social development of children in Colombia, which has suffered decades of conflict.” The foundation focuses on providing meals for children and building and improving educational infrastructure in Shakira’s hometown of Barranquilla as well as four other Colombian communities.

In addition to her efforts with the Fundación Pies Descalzos, Shakira has made a number of other notable donations over the years. In 2007, she diverted a whopping $40 million of her wealth to help rebuild community infrastructure in Peru and Nicaragua in the wake of a devastating 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Shakira donated a large supply of N95 masks for healthcare workers and ventilators for hospital patients to her hometown of Barranquilla.

Back in 2010, the UN honored Shakira with a medal to recognize her dedication to social justice, at which time the Director General of the International Labour Organization described her as a “true ambassador for children and young people.”

On November 20, 2023 (which was supposed to be her first day of trial), Shakira reached a deal with the prosecution that resulted in a three-year suspended sentence and around $8 million in fines.

Photo by Adria Puig/Anadolu via Getty Images

Shakira’s tax fraud scandal: How much did she pay?

In 2018, prosecutors in Spain initiated a tax evasion case against Shakira, alleging she lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014 and therefore failed to pay around $14.4 million in taxes to the Spanish government. Spanish law requires anyone who is “domiciled” (i.e., living primarily) in Spain for more than half of the year to pay income taxes.

During the period in question, Shakira listed the Bahamas as her primary residence but did spend some time in Spain, as she was dating Gerard Piqué, a professional footballer and Spanish citizen. The couple’s first son, Milan, was also born in Barcelona during this period. 

Shakira maintained that she spent far fewer than 183 days per year in Spain during each of the years in question. In an interview with Elle Magazine, the pop star opined that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate. It's clear they wanted to go after that money no matter what."

Prosecutors in the case sought a fine of almost $26 million and a possible eight-year prison stint, but in November of 2023, Shakira took a deal to close the case, accepting a fine of around $8 million and a three-year suspended sentence to avoid going to trial. In reference to her decision to take the deal, Shakira stated, "While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favour [had the trial proceeded], I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal well-being in this fight."

How much did the Shakira statue in Barranquilla cost?

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze likeness of Shakira was unveiled on a waterfront promenade in Barranquilla. The city’s then-mayor, Jaime Pumarejo, commissioned Colombian sculptor Yino Márquez to create the statue of the city’s treasured pop icon, along with a sculpture of the city’s coat of arms.

According to the New York Times, the two sculptures cost the city the equivalent of around $180,000. A plaque at the statue’s base reads, “A heart that composes, hips that don’t lie, an unmatched talent, a voice that moves the masses and bare feet that march for the good of children and humanity.” 

Related: Taylor Swift net worth: The most successful entertainer joins the billionaire's club

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Delta Air Lines adds a new route travelers have been asking for

The new Delta seasonal flight to the popular destination will run daily on a Boeing 767-300.

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March 14, 2024

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Those who have tried to book a flight from North America to Europe in the summer of 2023 know just how high travel demand to the continent has spiked.

At 2.93 billion, visitors to the countries making up the European Union had finally reached pre-pandemic levels last year while North Americans in particular were booking trips to both large metropolises such as Paris and Milan as well as smaller cities growing increasingly popular among tourists.

Related: A popular European city is introducing the highest 'tourist tax' yet

As a result, U.S.-based airlines have been re-evaluating their networks to add more direct routes to smaller European destinations that most travelers would have previously needed to reach by train or transfer flight with a local airline.

The new flight will take place on a Boeing 767-300.

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Delta Air Lines: ‘Glad to offer customers increased choice…’

By the end of March, Delta Air Lines  (DAL)  will be restarting its route between New York’s JFK and Marco Polo International Airport in Venice as well as launching two new flights to Venice from Atlanta. One will start running this month while the other will be added during peak demand in the summer.

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“As one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Venice is hugely popular with U.S. travelers, and our flights bring valuable tourism and trade opportunities to the city and the region as well as unrivalled opportunities for Venetians looking to explore destinations across the Americas,” Delta’s SVP for Europe Matteo Curcio said in a statement. “We’re glad to offer customers increased choice this summer with flights from New York and additional service from Atlanta.”

The JFK-Venice flight will run on a Boeing 767-300  (BA)  and have 216 seats including higher classes such as Delta One, Delta Premium Select and Delta Comfort Plus.

Delta offers these features on the new flight

Both the New York and Atlanta flights are seasonal routes that will be pulled out of service in October. Both will run daily while the first route will depart New York at 8:55 p.m. and arrive in Venice at 10:15 a.m. local time on the way there, while leaving Venice at 12:15 p.m. to arrive at JFK at 5:05 p.m. on the way back.

According to Delta, this will bring its service to 17 flights from different U.S. cities to Venice during the peak summer period. As with most Delta flights at this point, passengers in all fare classes will have access to free Wi-Fi during the flight.

Those flying in Delta’s highest class or with access through airline status or a credit card will also be able to use the new Delta lounge that is part of the airline’s $12 billion terminal renovation and is slated to open to travelers in the coming months. The space will take up more than 40,000 square feet and have an outdoor terrace.

“Delta One customers can stretch out in a lie-flat seat and enjoy premium amenities like plush bedding made from recycled plastic bottles, more beverage options, and a seasonal chef-curated four-course meal,” Delta said of the new route. “[…] All customers can enjoy a wide selection of in-flight entertainment options and stay connected with Wi-Fi and enjoy free mobile messaging.”

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Stock Market Today: Stocks turn lower as factory inflation spikes, retail sales miss target

Stocks will navigate the last major data releases prior to next week’s Fed rate meeting in Washington.

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March 14, 2024

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Check back for updates throughout the trading day

U.S. stocks edged lower Thursday following a trio of key economic releases that have added to the current inflation puzzle as investors shift focus to the Federal Reserve's March policy meeting next week in Washington.

Updated at 9:59 AM EDT

Red start

Stocks are now falling sharply following the PPI inflation data and retail sales miss, with the S&P 500 marked 18 points lower, or 0.36%, in the opening half hour of trading.

The Dow, meanwhile, was marked 92 points lower while the Nasdaq slipped 67 points.

Treasury yields are also on the move, with 2-year notes rising 5 basis points on the session to 4.679% and 10-year notes pegged 7 basis points higher at 4.271%.

Updated at 9:44 AM EDT

Under Water

Under Armour  (UAA)  shares slumped firmly lower in early trading following the sportswear group's decision to bring back founder Kevin Plank as CEO, replacing the outgoing Stephanie Linnartz.

Plank, who founded Under Armour in 1996, left the group in May of 2021 just weeks before the group revealed that it was co-operating with investigations from both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice into the company's revenue recognition accounting.

Under Armour shares were marked 10.6% lower in early trading to change hands at $7.21 each.

Source: Under Armour Investor Relations

Updated at 9:22 AM EDT

Steely resolve

U.S. Steel  (X)  shares extended their two-day decline Thursday, falling 5.75% in pre-market trading following multiple reports that suggest President Joe Biden will push to prevent Japan's Nippon Steel from buying the Pittsburgh-based group.

Both Reuters and the Associated Press have said Biden will express his views to Prime Minister Kishida Yuko ahead of a planned State Visit next month at the White House. 

Related: US Steel soars on $15 billion Nippon Steel takeover; United Steelworkers slams deal

Updated at 8:52 AM EDT

Clear as mud

Retail sales rebounded last month, but the overall tally of $700.7 billion missed Street forecasts and suggests the recent uptick in inflation could be holding back discretionary spending.

A separate reading of factory inflation, meanwhile, showed prices spiking by 1.6%, on the year, and 0.6% on the month, amid a jump in goods prices.

U.S. stocks held earlier gains following the data release, with futures tied to the S&P 500 indicating an opening bell gain of 10 points, while the Dow was called 140 points higher. The Nasdaq, meanwhile, is looking at a more modest 40 point gain.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields edged 3 basis points lower to 4.213% while two-year notes were little-changed at 4.626%.

Stock Market Today

Stocks finished lower last night, with the S&P 500 ending modestly in the red and the Nasdaq falling around 0.5%. The declines came amid an uptick in Treasury yields tied to concern that inflation pressures have failed to ease over the opening months of the year.

A better-than-expected auction of $22 billion in 30-year bonds, drawing the strongest overall demand since last June, steadied the overall market, but stocks still slipped into the close with an eye towards today's dataset.

The Commerce Department will publish its February reading of factory-gate inflation at 8:30 am Eastern Time. Analysts are expecting a slowdown in the key core reading, which feeds into the Fed's favored PCE price index.

Retail sales figures for the month are also set for an 8:30 am release as investors search for clues on consumer strength, tied to a resilient job market. Those factors could give the Fed more justification to wait until the summer months to begin the first of its three projected rate cuts.

"The case for a gradual but sustained slowdown in growth in consumers’ spending from 2023’s robust pace is persuasive," said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics. 

"Most households have run down the excess savings accumulated during the pandemic, while the cost of credit has jumped and last year’s plunge in home sales has depressed demand housing-related retail items like furniture and appliances," he added.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields are holding steady at 4.196% heading into the start of the New York trading session, while 2-year notes were pegged at 4.628%.

With Fed officials in a quiet period, requiring no public comments ahead of next week's meeting in Washington, the U.S. dollar index is trading in a narrow range against its global peers and was last marked 0.06% higher at 102.852.

On Wall Street, futures tied to the S&P 500 are indicating an opening bell gain of around 19 points, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average indicating a 140-point advance.

The tech-focused Nasdaq, which is up 7.77% for the year, is priced for a gain of around 95 points, with Tesla  (TSLA)  once again sliding into the red after ending the Wednesday session at a 10-month low.

In Europe, the regionwide Stoxx 600 was marked 0.35% higher in early Frankfurt trading, while Britain's FTSE 100 slipped 0.09% in London.

Overnight in Asia, the Nikkei 225 gained 0.29% as investors looked to a key series of wage negotiation figures from key unions that are likely to see the biggest year-on-year pay increases in three decades.

The broader MSCI ex-Japan benchmark, meanwhile, rose 0.18% into the close of trading. 

Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024

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