US stock futures were little changed early Thursday, pointing to the S&P 500 opening just several points away from the 5,000 mark.
How to trade stock index futures
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S&P 500 ES00 futures
It fell 3 points, or 0.1%, to 5,012 -
Dow Jones Industrial Average Futures YM00
It fell 13 points, or 0%, to 38,761 -
Nasdaq 100 futures NQ00
It added 8 points or 0% to 17850
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 156 points, or 0.4%, to 38,677 points.
The index increased 41 points, or 0.82%, to 4,995.
It gained 148 points, or 0.95%, to 15,757.
What drives the markets?
A major milestone looms for Wall Street's main stock gauge. Optimism about corporate earnings, especially from big technology companies, combined with a stoic US economic backdrop and acceptance that rates won't start falling until later in the spring, has pushed the S&P 500 within striking distance of breaching the 5,000 mark for the first time.
After touching an intraday high of 4,999.89 on Wednesday and closing at a record high of 4,995.06, futures indicate that Thursday's session will see the S&P 500 open slightly lower around 4,994.
Well-received results from Walt Disney DIS
After the closing bell on Wednesday will support sentiment – although this positivity may be somewhat countered by another disappointing earnings update from PayPal PYPL..
Perhaps more significant for the S&P 500, and indeed the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, is the 20% rise in shares of Arm Holdings ARM.
After the chip designer offered upbeat guidance and said he saw “increasing demand for new technology driven by all things AI.”
Much of the S&P 500's 22.4% rise over the past 12 months has been fueled by the belief that big technology companies like Microsoft MSFT
And NVDA
It can offer AI-related boosts to profits.
“Overall, these earnings reports are likely to encourage the market,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB. “At the start of earnings season, a series of weak reports from US banks weighed on earnings growth, but now that the other 10 sectors are mostly reporting earnings, the picture is brighter.”
Companies reporting Thursday include ConocoPhillips COP,
Kamiko CCJ
And Hershey HSY
Before the stock market opens, followed after the close by confirming the AFRM,
Cloudflare Net
and Expedia EXPE.
Calmer conditions in bond markets also helped the S&P 500 rise. The US Treasury on Wednesday saw strong demand for its $42 billion auction of its 10-year bonds.
,
A sign that the market is more relaxed about inflation and the timing of the potential first interest rate cut by the Fed has been pushed back to May.
“Strong demand…suggests that investors continue to buy 10-year US securities while they sit patiently in the waiting room and watch major US stocks.” [equity] “We are witnessing a record run for indices,” said Ipek Ozkardskaya, chief analyst at Swissquote Bank.
The Treasury will auction $25 billion of 30-year bonds at 1 p.m. on Thursday.
US economic data published on Thursday includes the weekly initial jobless claims report at 8:30 a.m. EST and December wholesale inventories at 10 a.m.
Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin is scheduled to appear on Bloomberg TV at 8:30 a.m. and will also speak in New York at 12:05 p.m. Barkin told MarketWatch that it makes sense to be patient before making interest rate cuts.
