U.S. Stock Futures Were Mixed Wednesday, As Investors Awaited A Bumper Day Of Major Earnings Reports And A Meeting Of The Federal Reserve.
U.S. Stock Futures Were Mixed Wednesday, As Investors Awaited A Bumper Day Of Major Earnings Reports And A Meeting Of The Federal Reserve. Futures tied to the technology-heavy Nasdaq-100 rose 0.4%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.1% while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.3%.
Investors were gearing up for one of the busiest days of the quarterly earnings season, with AT&T, Blackstone and Boeing set to report ahead of the opening bell. Earnings from tech giants Apple, Facebook and Tesla are due just after the market closes. Investors are eager to see how those companies have fared during a quarter marked by continued lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.
“The bar for tech stocks to beat is quite high because we were still in lockdown and yet they do seem to be doing well relative to those higher expectations,” said Hani Redha, a portfolio manager at PineBridge Investments. Shares of Microsoft gained 3.1% ahead of the opening bell after the company reported record quarterly sales Tuesday. Its shares closed at a new high Tuesday.
Walgreens Boots Alliance was up 7% in premarket trading after the drugstore chain named Starbucks operating chief Rosalind Brewer as its next chief executive. Earnings have pleased the market so far and investors continue to bet on economic support from the Federal Reserve and a possible stimulus plan from the Biden administration. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 hit a new intraday high before slipping in the final minutes of trading.
“The Fed and the new Biden stimulus plans — it’s all a very positive backdrop for the equity market,” said Brian Walsh, Jr., a portfolio manager at Walsh & Nicholson Financial Group. “They are saying we aren’t going to let the markets fail right now and, with bond yields as low as they are, there is nowhere else to be.”
The Fed is widely expected to leave monetary policy unchanged and Chairman Jerome Powell will likely underscore the bank’s commitment to supporting the economy with low interest rates and bond buying for the foreseeable future. Mr. Powell will likely face questions about the health of the economy and how long the Fed’s stimulus measures will remain in place.
GameStop surged over 90% in premarket trading, as day traders, propelled by social media, looked ready to pile into the retailer for another day. The stock rose 93% Tuesday amid a battle between individual investors and hedge funds who are shorting the stock. After markets closed Tuesday, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted “Gamestonk!!” in an apparent reference to the frenzied trading.
Data on durable goods orders will be released at 8:30 a.m. E.T. The figures are expected to show an eighth consecutive monthly rise in orders, highlighting the resilience the manufacturing sector during the pandemic. In commodities markets, Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, rose 0.7% to $56.01 a barrel. Gold prices fell 0.2% to $1,847.30 a troy ounce.
Overseas, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 was flat, while in Asia, stock indexes were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.3%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.3%, while in mainland China, the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.1%.
This news was originally published at Morning Star.