This post was originally published on this site
U.S. stock futures declined Monday in sympathy with Asian and European bourses as a fresh round of COVID-19 shutdowns in China rattled investors.
How are stock-index futures trading
-
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
-0.50%
dipped 22 points, or 0.6%, to 3952 -
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
-0.22%
fell 110 points, or 0.3%, to 33665 -
Nasdaq 100 futures
NQ00,
-0.71%
eased 80 points, or 0.6%, to 11628
On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
rose 199 points, or 0.59%, to 33746, the S&P 500
SPX,
increased 19 points, or 0.48%, to 3965, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
gained 1 points, or 0.01%, to 11146.
What’s driving markets
The holiday-shortened week started with investors in “risk-off” mode as fresh COVID-19 lockdowns in China revived concerns about the global economy.
Wall Street will be closed on Thursday for the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday and trading is likely to be very thin for Black Friday, when the festive shopping season kicks off in earnest.
Asian
ADOW,
and European stocks
SXXP,
tracked U.S. equity futures lower after the Chinese government introduced further restictions within the world’s second biggest economy in the wake of more COVID-19 outbreaks.
Worries about waning demand from the globe’s dominant manufacturer pushed down prices of industrial metals like copper
HG00,
and forced U.S. crude oil
CL.1,
0.5% lower to $79.71 a barrel, close to its lowest since the end of September.
“Financial markets have caught a cold amid worries that mounting COVID cases in China and a fresh tightening of restrictions will send a fresh shiver through manufacturing output and push down demand for raw materials,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Evidence of risk aversion and a scramble for perceived havens could be seen in forex and bonds, where the dollar index
DXY,
reversed its recent slide to gain 0.8% to 107.76 and the 10-year Treasury yield
TMUBMUSD10Y,
which moves in the opposite direction to prices, dipped 1.7 basis points to 3.811%
“The bears are on the prowl today as investors have little choice but to adjust for downside risk,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
Helping support Treasuries, and possibly ameliorating declines in stocks, were comments from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, who on Saturday said he was minded to slow the pace of interest rate increases and saw a possible top, or terminal rate, of 5% for this cycle.
San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly is due to speak about inflation on Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern. The Fed will release on Wednesday at 2 p.m. the minutes of its most recent rate-setting meeting.
Disney shares
DIS,
were a feature in premarket action, gaining 8% after Bob Iger returned as chief executive.
It’s a thin week for U.S. economic data, with much of it shoehorned into Wednesday, ahead of Thanksgiving the next day and no reports scheduled for Black Friday either.
