U.S. stock futures moved higher on Friday, as investors awaited data including retail sales and the University of Michigan sentiment survey, as well as earnings from Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co.
How are stock-index futures trading?
-
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average
YM00,
+0.29%
rose 113 points, or 0.4%, to 30717. -
Futures on the S&P 500
ES00,
+0.31%
gained 15 points, or 0.4%, to 3808. -
Futures on the Nasdaq 100
NQ00,
+0.32%
increased 49 points, or 0.4%, to 11847.
On Thursday stocks ended down, but off session lows. The S&P 500
SPX,
shed 0.3% to close at 3,790.38, its fifth day in the red and longest losing streak in a month. The Dow industrials
DJIA,
fell 142.62 points, or 0.5%, to finish at 30,630.17, clawing back a loss of 600 points earlier. The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
rose less than 0.1% to 11,251.19.
What’s driving markets?
Investors are waiting on June retail sales data, expected to rise 0.9% after a 0.3% drop in the previous month, as well as import prices and the Empire state manufacturing index, all due at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
Industrial production will be released at 9:15 a.m. Eastern, followed by the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index and 5-year inflation expectations at 10 a.m. Eastern. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has shown keen interest in the latter.
Stocks pulled back from deeper losses on Thursday after Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard both voiced support for 75 basis point hikes. That’s as markets have sold off over concerns that a 100 basis point hike was likely at the July 26-27 meeting, following this week’s data that showed the strongest jump in consumer prices in four decades.
Retail sales could be key for stock market direction, say some. “Higher retail sales will put the 1.0% hike front and center again, and I would expect we will see another rerun of the early Wall Street price action of yesterday, i.e., sell everything, buy dollars,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA, in a note to clients.
And more earnings news is on the way, following Thursday’s disappointing results from JPMorgan
JPM,
and Morgan Stanley
MS,
Citigroup
C,
Wells Fargo
WFC,
and UnitedHealth
UNH,
are all expected to report ahead of Friday’s open.
Elsewhere, oil prices
CL.1,
were modestly higher and the dollar
DXY,
was steady, while copper
HG00,
and other industrial metals were also under pressure.
China reported the economy grew just 0.4% annually in the second quarter, as Beijing’s stringent COVID-19 lockdowns have taken a toll on economic activity. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected a rise of 0.9%.
The economy contracted 2.6% in the April to June period from the prior quarter, marking the first quarterly contraction since the first quarter of 2020.
