U.S. stock-index futures slipped Monday, as traders continued to react to a jobs report that showed weaker-than-forecast employment growth and prepared for the release of third-quarter earnings.
What are major indexes doing?
- Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00, +0.36% were down 81 points, or 0.2%, at 34,545.
- S&P 500 futures ES00, +0.34% fell 20.50 points, or 0.5%, to 4,361.75.
- Nasdaq-100 futures NQ00, +0.35% dropped 125.50 points, or 0.8%, to 14,682.75.
Stocks wobbled on Friday, but logged weekly gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.48% advanced 1.2% last week, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.42% advanced 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.42% eked out a 0.1% rise.
What’s driving the market?
With no economic releases due on Columbus Day, and the U.S. bond market closed, analysts were left dissecting the report that showed 194,000 nonfarm jobs added in September.
“Friday’s U.S. employment report was sufficiently mixed to revive the debate over the whether the Fed will really go ahead with the planned tapering next month. Despite the headline miss, the underlying numbers should just about meet Chair [Jerome] Powell’s requirement of ‘decent’ and ensure that the existing schedule remains intact,” said Ian Williams, strategist at U.K. broker Peel Hunt.
He added that the third-quarter earnings season will be even more crucial in supporting valuations as yields rise. Major U.S. banks including JPMorgan Chase JPM, +0.23%, Bank of America BAC, +0.83% and Citigroup C, +1.57% are due to report results this week.
Analysts have expressed concern that supply-chain issues that have spread throughout the global economy will compress profit margins, and that inflation will limit consumer demand.
Read: How stock-market investors can make sense of supply-chain chaos
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.612% rose 14 basis points last week to 1.60%, the biggest weekly gain since Feb. 19.
Which companies are in focus?
- Shares of Southwest Airlines Co. LUV, -2.58% fell 3% in premarket trade. Southwest canceled hundreds of flights over the weekend, a move it blamed on weather and air-traffic control issues.
- Merck & Co. Inc. MRK, +0.27% on Monday asked U.S. regulators to authorize the pill it’s developed to treat COVID-19. Shares were little changed.
What are other markets doing?
- The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.09%, a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, rose 0.1%.
- Oil futures continued to surge, with the U.S. benchmark CL00, +2.67% up 3.1% at $81.83 a barrel, on track for its first finish above $80 since October 2014. Gold futures GC00, -0.07% edged down 0.1%.
- The Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP, -0.17% fell 0.5%, while London’s FTSE 100 UKX, +0.49% edged up 0.2%.
- The Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -0.01% ended fractionally lower, while the Hang Seng Index HSI, +1.96% rose 2% in Hong Kong and Japan’s Nikkei 225 NIK, +1.60% gained 1.6%.
