The Dow is predicted to open with a slight increase after seven consecutive weeks of decline.

BY THE NUMBERS

U.S. stock futures slightly turned positive on Monday after the S&P 500 declined for seven consecutive weeks, marking the first time this has happened in over two decades. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both dropped for six straight weeks, a feat that hasn't been seen since 2011 and 2012, respectively. Despite Friday's strong rally, led by the Nasdaq's 3.8% advance, all three stock benchmarks finished with weekly losses of more than 2%. (CNBC)

Monday saw the stock market remain steady, with the S&P 500 hovering just under 3%. Despite a slight dip, oil prices remained roughly $109 per barrel. Crypto took another hit, with bitcoin trading at around $30,000 early Monday. Retail earnings are set to kick off on Tuesday, and the government will release April retail sales data. Investors are hoping to gain insight from these reports on how consumers are responding to rising inflation. (Source: CNBC)

Ben Bernanke, the former Fed Chairman, stated that the current central bank made a mistake by not addressing inflation sooner. He explained that one of the reasons for this delay was to avoid shocking the market. This was revealed in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC television, which aired on Monday.

* Goldman Sachs' former CEO Blankfein warns of a high risk of recession (CNBC)* Bezos of Amazon criticizes Biden on inflation, stating its impact on the poor is the most harmful (CNBC)

IN THE NEWS TODAY

JetBlue offered $30 per share to buy Spirit Airlines in a letter to shareholders, but the offer was rejected due to regulatory concerns.

McDonald's announced Monday that it will sell its business in Russia, just over two months after it paused operations in the country due to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The company stated that its "continued ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable" and is not consistent with its values. Meanwhile, Finland and Sweden have both announced their bids to join the Western military alliance NATO, ending a long history of military non-alignment. Any NATO enlargement requires the approval of all 30 members and their legislatures.

According to Reuters, TSLA has delayed by at least a week its plan to restore production at its Shanghai plant to pre-lockdown levels. The city's Covid lockdown has been in place for more than six weeks, and companies in Shanghai are only allowed to reopen if they can operate under strict isolation requirements. Meanwhile, Beijing has been experiencing a surge of new Covid cases every day for the past three weeks, although it is not under a citywide lockdown. Instead, the city is subject to virus mitigation curbs.

On Saturday, Elon Musk, CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, tweeted that Twitter's legal team had accused him of violating a nondisclosure agreement by disclosing the sample size of Twitter's checks on automated users. He wrote, "Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100." (Source: CNBC)

If Musk lifts his ban, Trump can tweet on Truth Social before tweeting on Twitter.

STOCKS TO WATCH

Carvana's premarket action saw a 13.3% increase after the company forecast significant core earnings for 2023 and announced plans to reduce costs in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The eyewear retailer reiterated its prior full-year outlook after reporting an unexpected quarterly loss and revenue that came in slightly below forecasts, resulting in a 3.8% slip in the premarket.

Netflix's stock price increased by 1.8% in premarket trading after Wedbush upgraded it to outperform from neutral. The firm stated that Netflix's staggered release of shows like "Ozark" and "Stranger Things" will help reduce churn, and it believes that Netflix is once again positioned to grow.

Stifel Financial upgraded TTD to buy from hold and increased its price target to $80 per share after predicting that the programmatic advertising company will benefit from the addition of ad-supported versions of Netflix and Disney+.

Ford sold another 7 million shares of electric vehicle maker RIVN, according to an SEC filing. This follows the sale of 8 million shares last week, leaving Ford with a 9.7% stake. Rivian lost 1.1% in premarket trading.

Piper Sandler upgraded SoFi to overweight from neutral, causing it to rally 4.2% in the premarket. The firm predicts that SoFi will benefit from rapid growth in deposits, the expiration of the student loan moratorium, and revenue growth in financial services.