Finance.yahoo.com:
Stock futures drifted near record levels Wednesday morning, with investors’ optimism over rebounding corporate earnings helping counterbalance ongoing concerns over the coronavirus.
Contracts on the S&P 500 ticked down, a day after the index reached a record closing high. The Dow was also on track for a lower open, while Nasdaq futures rose.
Shares of ride-hailing company Lyft (LYFT) gained after the company unexpectedly delivered adjusted EBITDA profitability for the first time since going public in 2019, with a pick-up in ridership during the reopening helping to fuel results. Oil and gas company Occidental Petroleum (OXY) also posted a surprise adjusted profit as energy demand rebounded.
Estimates-topping results from these and a myriad of other major U.S. companies have helped buoy stocks even as jitters around the spread of the Delta variant and concerns around a regulatory crackdown in China lingered. Treasury markets, however, have reflected some of these concerns, with the benchmark 10-year yield back below 1.2% and holding at the lowest levels since mid-July.
“Certainly when it comes to the Delta variant, that has been a driver of rates moving lower. And certainly concerns around China have also been a headwind. We do think those are largely driven outside the U.S., so when it comes to domestic factors, domestic growth actually looks fairly solid,” Stephanie Roth, JPMorgan private bank senior markets economist, told Yahoo Finance. “We expect over the long run domestic factors should win out and rates should move higher.”
In terms of equities, “Tactically, cyclicals should do fairly well, so we’re bar-belling cyclicals and tech here, and we think rates should certainly trend higher over the next 12 months,” Roth added.
More clues on the economic growth trajectory for the U.S. are set to emerge in the coming days, with a slew of reports on the labor market due over the course of the rest of the week. ADP’s monthly employment report is expected to show private payrolls grew by a solid 683,000 in July, decelerating only slightly from June’s gain of 692,000. And on Friday, the Labor Department’s “official” July jobs report is expected to reflect a slightly acceleration in payroll gains, with a pick-up in hiring and the return of more workers to the labor market helping to alleviate some of the labor scarcities rampant across industries.
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7:17 a.m. ET Wednesday: Stock futures mixed
Here’s where markets were trading Wednesday morning:
- S&P 500 (GSPC): -4.25 (-0.1%) to 4,410.75
- Dow (DJI): -53 (-0.15%) to 34,945.00
- Nasdaq (IXIC): +7 (+0.05%) to 15,053.25
- Crude (CL=F): -$0.75 (-1.06%) to $69.81 a barrel
- Gold (GC=F): +$3.00 (+0.17%) to $1,817.10 per ounce
- 10-year Treasury (TNX): +0.8 bps to yield 1.182%
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6:10 p.m. ET Tuesday: Stock futures advance
Here’s where markets were trading Tuesday evening:
- S&P 500 futures (ES=F): -3 points (-0.07%) at 4,412.00
- Dow futures (YM=F): -27 points (-0.08%) to 34,971.00
- Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): -3 points (-0.02%) to 15,043.25
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