Stock-index futures pointed to the upside Wednesday, with U.S. equities on track to resume a march to the upside a day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 halted a win streak at seven sessions.
What are major indexes doing?
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00, +0.92% rose 256 points, or 0.9%, to 27,871, while S&P 500 futures ES00, +0.70% gained 23.85 points, or 0.7%, to 3,353.75. Nasdaq-100 futures NQ00, +0.79% were up 87.50 points, or 0.5%, at 10,964.75.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.37% on Tuesday finished with a loss of 104.53 points or 0.4%, at 27,686.91. The blue-chip gauge was up more than 300 points at its session high. The S&P 500 SPX, -0.79% ended 26.78 points lower, a loss of 0.8%, at 3,333.69. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP, -1.69% dropped 185.53 points, or 1.7%, closing at 10,782.82.
What’s driving the market?
Stocks were on track to resume a push higher that’s seen the S&P 500 near its Feb. 19 all-time closing high, taking back the ground lost in late February and March in a pandemic-inspired selloff that saw the benchmark fall around 34%. A slowdown in the number of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and optimism over efforts to produce a vaccine have been cited as drivers for recent gains.
Read:Why the S&P 500 is knocking on the door of its first record close in 6 months
“The newsflow was very quiet with no progress in Washington on stimulus talks and little economic releases elsewhere, but markets remained in a positive mood betting on the fact that the worst of COVID-induced slowdown was behind us and that the economy was going to rebound strongly into the end of the year,” said Boris Schlossberg, managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, in a note.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday repeated that talks toward a new coronavirus aid package remained at a stalemate. Analysts said concerns remain about legal challenges to and the effectiveness of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump over the weekend aimed at extending some of the elements of spending measures that lapsed at the end of July.
A rotation out of highflying tech and growth stocks toward left-behind cyclical and value stocks appeared to be taking a breather.
On the economic front, the July consumer-price index is due at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expect a 0.4% rise in the index, while the core measure, which strips out volatile food and energy costs, is forecast to rise 0.2%.
Which companies are in focus?
- Shares of electric-car maker Tesla Inc. TSLA, -3.11% were up more than 6% in premarket trade after its board approved a five-for-one split of the company’s stock.
- Moderna Inc. MRNA, -4.22% shares jumped more than 11% in premarket action after the drugmaker late Tuesday said it had reached an agreement to sell 100 million doses of its investigational vaccine for COVID-19 to the U.S. government for more than $1.5 billion.
How are other markets trading?
In Asia trade, China’s CSI 300 index 000300, -0.72% fell 0.7%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, +1.42% closed 1.4% higher and Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index NIK, +0.41% edged up 0.4%.
In Europe, the pan-European Stoxx 600 Europe Index SXXP, +0.36% headed 0.4% higher and the FTSE 100 UKX, +0.75% extended a 1.7% rally from the previous session, climbing 1.2% on Wednesday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, 0.678% rose 1.9 basis points to 0.676% after rising 8.4 basis points on Tuesday as investors shunned safe-haven assets. Bond prices move inversely to yields.
Gold GC00, -0.31% retreated for a second session on Wednesday, with December futures tumbling 0.7% to trade at $1,933.10 an ounce. Crude-oil prices climbed, with U.S. benchmark futures CL.1, +1.70% advancing 1.6% to settle at $42.27 a barrel.
The greenback was virtually unchanged, with the ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, -0.06%, a gauge of the buck against a half-dozen major rivals, at 93.624.
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