Stock Futures Little Changed After Indexes End Higher for 7th Time in 8 Sessions; Weekly Jobless Claims Come in Lower Than Expected
Stock futures were slightly higher Thursday, a day after the three major equities indexes all rose for the seventh time in eight sessions as weak private-sector employment data furthered traders’ belief that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its meeting next week.
Futures associated with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average, benchmark S&P 500, and tech-heavy Nasdaq were all within 0.1% of the flatline. The indexes finished up a respective 0.9%, 0.3%, and 0.2% Wednesday, with the Dow adding more than 400 points.
Both the Dow and S&P 500 entered Thursday within 1% of their all-time closing highs, and the Nasdaq was about 2% below its record closing level.
Yesterday, the ADP employment reading for November indicated that private payrolls fell by 32,000 last month when an increase of 40,000 jobs was expected. The report was the last monthly jobs reading for the Fed before its meeting on interest rates.
In economic data early Thursday, weekly jobless claims came in at 191,000 when 218,000 was the median expectation, and Challenger, Gray & Christmas said that through November, U.S. employers have announced near 1.2 million job cuts—the highest level since 2020, when the pandemic hit. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note ticked higher to 4.10% from 4.08% immediately before the jobless-claims reading.
The CME FedWatch tool indicated traders believe with a nearly 90% likelihood that the Fed will cut rates by a quarter-percentage point, with investors keenly awaiting PCE inflation data tomorrow.
Bitcoin was trading just below $93,000, little changed on the day but up sharply after having suffered its worst day since March on Monday, when it closed below $85,500. The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the performance of the dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, was near flat at 98.89. WTI crude futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, rose 0.7% to $59.35 per barrel, while gold futures ticked lower to $4,225 per ounce.
In corporate news, shares of Salesforce (CRM) rose about 2% in premarket trading after the software giant late Wednesday posted better-than-expected quarterly profit and raised its outlook on the back of growth from its data products and AI offerings.
In other post-earnings stock moves, shares of UiPath (PATH) jumped 9.5%; Dollar General (DG) advanced 6%; Hormel (HRL) rose 5%; Five Below (FIVE) added 3%; Snowflake (SNOW) sank 9%; and Kroger (KR) fell 2.5%.
Elsewhere, shares of Meta Platforms (META) rose modestly after the EU announced it was opening an antitrust probe into the Facebook and Instagram parent’s new WhatsApp AI policy. The other Magnificent Seven large-cap technology stocks were slightly higher with the exception of Apple (AAPL), whose shares ticked lower.
