Bitcoin, Coinbase, Peloton, Kohl’s: What to Watch When the Stock Market Opens Today

Stock futures are falling, pointing to another day of losses as investors prepare for a meeting of Federal Reserve policy makers and earnings from big technology companies.

• Cryptocurrencies were broadly lower, with bitcoin down 9% from its Friday 5 p.m. ET level, and crypto stocks were dropping along with them. Crypto exchange Coinbase fell 11% premarket. Bitcoin miners were also hit hard, with Riot Blockchain down 12% and Marathon Digital down 12%.
• Peloton Interactive slipped 4% premarket. An activist investor wants the stationary-bike maker to fire its chief executive and explore a sale after its stock plummeted more than 80% from its high, as growth slowed.
• Halliburton fell 3.1%. The oil-field-services company swung to a profit in the fourth quarter as revenue grew in North America and internationally. Oil prices were also down, with U.S. crude down 1.2%.
• Kohl’s soared 33% premarket. In a letter, Engine Capital urged Kohl’s to run a sale process following Starboard Value’s bid, as activists remain unsatisfied with the pace of the department-store chain’s turnaround.

• Comcast shares were shaking off the day’s gloom, rising 2.5% premarket. RBC Capital lifted its rating on the stock to “outperform” and gave it a price target of $60 per share. It closed on Friday at $49.73.
• U.S.-traded shares of Unilever jumped 7.6% after reports that activist hedge fund Trian Fund Management had bought a stake in the packaged-food and consumer-goods company in the wake of its failed bid for part of GlaxoSmithKline. 
• The U.K.’s Vodafone Group  rose 6.5% after Reuters reported that the telecom is in talks with Iliad to combine their units in Italy.
• IBM ,   Crane  and  Brown & Brown  are among the companies reporting earnings after Monday’s close.

Chart of the Day

• The financial industry has spotted an opportunity to make money by helping people feel good about themselves. But these investments don’t do much to make the world a better place, writes James Mackintosh in the first in a series of Streetwise columns about funds guided by environmental, social and governance principles, known as ESG.

Write to James Willhite at [email protected]