Futures rise as focus shifts to jobs data

By Ankika Biswas and Lisa Pauline Mattackal

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures gained on Monday ahead of manufacturing PMI data, with focus also on labor market numbers later in the week for cues on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy path.

AI chip firm Nvidia shed 1.0% in premarket trading, after choppy trade last week, along with some weakness in other semiconductor stocks. Megacaps such as Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon.com were up between 0.4% and 0.9%.

Focus will be on ISM and S&P Global manufacturing PMIs later in the day. This follows Friday’s personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, which was unchanged in May and underscored the narrative of slowing inflation and resilient economic growth.

Also scheduled for the week are JOLTS job openings data on Tuesday, and ADP employment, factory orders, ISM services PMI data and minutes of the Fed’s latest policy meeting on Wednesday.

Non-farm payrolls data is due on Thursday, when trading will be shut for equities on account of U.S. Independence Day.

Traders have largely stuck to their bets of around two interest rate cuts this year, starting from September, according to LSEG FedWatch.

Comments from New York Fed President John Williams are also due later on Monday.

The Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 notched their third straight quarterly gains on Friday, with the tech-heavy index doing so for the first time in three years.

“It’s half time, and it is definitely party time, at least if you are in a large-cap, market-weighted index or the Magnificent Seven,” wrote Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

“The market continued to have no problem with a delaying Fed, geopolitical issues or the pending U.S. election … July should be dominated by earnings and, more importantly, projections for the second half of 2024.”

As the top few heavily weighted stocks have largely supported Wall Street’s upward trajectory on optimism around artificial intelligence and interest rate cuts, the blue-chip Dow has lagged its peers with a quarterly decline.

Owing to the lack of broad-based gains, market participants have highlighted concerns over the sustenance of such a skewed rally, calling for the need of greater diversification in investor holdings.

At 7:25 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 93 points, or 0.24%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 12.5 points, or 0.23%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 45.75 points, or 0.23%.

Spirit AeroSystems gained 4.7% following Boeing’s deal to buy back the fuselage supplier for $4.7 billion in stock. Boeing’s shares slipped 0.4%.

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Chewy’s shares soared 15.3% after stock influencer Keith Gill, also known as “Roaring Kitty”, disclosed a 6.6% stake in the pet products retailer.

Pet-focused company Petco Health and Wellness gained 1.9%, while shares of videogame retailer GameStop, another Gill stock favorite, fell 6.6%.

U.S.-listed shares of Li Auto rose 3.5% after the Chinese EV maker’s vehicle deliveries rose 46.7% year-on-year in June.

Cryptocurrency-related stocks Coinbase Global, Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital and MicroStrategy gained between 1.8% and 1.9% after bitcoin prices jumped as much as 3% to a one-week high.

(Reporting by Ankika Biswas and Lisa Mattackal in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)