US stock futures rose ahead of Thursday’s opening. That’s as investors tried to break the week’s losing streak across stock markets. That’s because interest rate jitters and recession chatter have hampered Wall Street’s seasonal bull run.
Futures on the S&P 500 (^GSPC) were up 0.22%, while futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) were up just 50 points (0.15%). Contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) were up 0.21%.
December’s historically positive month for stocks got off to a sluggish start due to new concerns over the duration of interest rate hikes ahead and the prospect of a recession.
The benchmark S&P 500 posted its fifth straight day of declines in Wednesday’s trading, with the leading index down 3.6% in the first seven days of the month. Meanwhile, his 4.4% loss on the Nasdaq over the same period marks his worst first week of December since 1975, according to Bespoke Investment Group data.
Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries performed well after 10-year yields dipped below 3.5%, hitting an almost three-month low. Crude oil selling also paused after commodities fell more than 10% week-to-date and traded at about $72 a barrel. The US dollar index rose.
On the corporate side, GameStope (GME) shares were little changed before the open after rising 4% after hours late Wednesday, even though the meme stock favorite reported worse-than-expected quarterly earnings. There was not.
Shares of Rent the Runway (RENT) surged 19% ahead of the market launch after the company raised its full-year earnings forecast and reported results that beat Wall Street expectations. CEO Jennifer Hyman also said the company’s restructuring plan is “substantially complete” and will focus on “significantly improving cash burn” in the future.
Headliners including Broadcom (AVGO), Costco (COST), Lululemon (LULU) and DocuSign (DOCU) will report. Costco was named Company of the Year by Yahoo Finance.
Investors are approaching the Federal Reserve’s long-awaited final rate-setting meeting for 2022 next week. US central bank officials are due to convene on his Dec. 13-14 and are expected to raise benchmark interest rates by 50 basis points.
The Fed’s next policy action is largely priced in, but how far key policy rates will need to rise, how long the U.S. economy will weather a high interest rate environment, and how likely it is to trigger a recession. There is still uncertainty as to whether there will be Wall Street’s big banks, along with traders, have priced in a moratorium of about 5%, but some warned that rates could rise if economic and labor market momentum maintain their current pace. increase.
“We still don’t think the Fed is ready to show the end of rate hikes is near, but mathematically using the dotplot, December’s steps toward ‘restrictive enough’ is just 75 bps away from a rate hike at the median terminal rate of the Summary of Economic Prospects (SEP),” said UBS economist Jonathan Pingle in a recent note. And it seems likely to remind everyone that it depends on how the data unfolds.”
More price data is due to be released ahead of the meeting, giving traders and Fed officials a snapshot of inflation trends. The Producer Price Index (PPI), a measure of inflation at the wholesale level, is due to be released on Friday, while the all-important Consumer Price Index (CPI) will be released on Tuesday, the first day of the Federal Reserve Board. It’s a schedule.
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Alexandra Semenova is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. follow her on her twitter @alexandraandnyc
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