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U.S. stock index futures were little changed on Thursday, with the technology sector wobbly after bleak forecasts from Nvidia Corp. and other companies, following a session of gains.
How are stock-index futures trading?
-
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.32%
rose 0.1% to 3,983 -
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
+0.37%
rose 70 points, or 0.2%, to 32,147 -
Nasdaq-100 futures
NQ00,
+0.09%
fell 0.1% to 11,925
On Wednesday, the Dow industrials
DJIA,
booked its fourth-straight session, rising 191.66 points, or 0.6%, to 32,120.28. The S&P 500 index
SPX,
gained 1% to 3,978.73, while the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
rose 1.5% to 11,434.74.
What’s driving the markets?
Investors were hoping to build on Wednesday’s gains, fueled by the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting, which analysts said signaled the central bank remains open to rethinking its aggressive rate-hiking plans to tame high inflation.
But the Fed didn’t reveal much that the market didn’t already know, said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
“The risks remain to the more hawkish side relative to market pricing. If the Fed is to pause the rerating process at a lower level than previously thought, inflation expectations will need to drop further. In 2018 the Fed’s balance sheet was half the size it is today, and the likes of Apple were not offering 10% pay rises,” he told clients in a note.
A mixed batch of news on the tech sector left the Nasdaq-100 struggling for direction. Among the decliners, shares of Apple Inc.
AAPL,
fell 1.4% in premarket trade, after Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that the iPhone maker plans to keep production of its flagship item flat this year due to industry challenges.
Separately, Apple said it would lift hourly pay for U.S. workers to $22 an hour, up 45% from 2018, to compete in a tight labor market and amid pushes by some employees to unionize.
Shares of Twitter Inc.
TWTR,
surged 5% in premarket trading after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a regulatory filing that he will lean on equity to finance his $44 billion Twitter deal, and not a margin loan backed by shares of his electric-car maker.
But investors were also looking at another batch of weak tech forecasts that came after Wednesday’s market close. Shares of cloud computing company Nutanix Inc.
NTNX,
tumbled 32% after its poor fourth-quarter outlook.
Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
shares were down 5% in premarket trading after the chip maker reported record results, but a weaker outlook due to China COVID shutdowns and the war in Ukraine. And Snowflake Inc.
SNOW,
shares fell 14% after the software company gave a disappointing forecast and reported cautious consumer activity.
On the U.S. data front for Thursday, weekly jobless claims and revisions to first-quarter gross domestic product are due at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time, followed by pending home sales at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Opinion: More tech companies are seeing a spring swoon, but there may be a silver lining
Elsewhere, Treasury yields
TMUBMUSD10Y,
TMUBMUSD02Y,
were slipping, along with the dollar
DXY,
as gold
GC00,
also slipped and oil
CL00,
edged higher.
