U.S. stock futures advanced on Wednesday, with Wall Street poised to build on its climb out of a four-straight losing hole as the long Christmas weekend nears.
Well-received results from Nike Corp. and FedEx Corp, were also in focus.
How are stock-index futures trading?
-
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.57%
rose 25 points, or 0.6%, to 3,874 -
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
+0.77%
jumped 259 points, or 0.7%, to 33,311 -
Nasdaq-100 futures
NQ00,
+0.38%
rose 68 points, or 0.6%, to 11,245
On Tuesday, the S&P 500
SPX,
rose 0.1% to finish at 3,821.62, the Dow industrials
DJIA,
rose 92.20 points, or 0.3%, to 32,849.74 and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
finished up 1.08 points at 10,547.11.
What’s driving markets?
Although the gains were slim, investors were cheering as Wall Street still managed to break a four straight sessions of losses on Tuesday. Markets brushed aside a surprise monetary shift by the Bank of Japan, where it raised the yield at which it allows bond to trade. The move has been viewed as a first step toward the bank ending its era of ultra easy monetary policy.
Results from Nike
NKE,
and FedEx
FDX,
may also be boosting sentiment. Shares of Nike jumped 10% in premarket trading after the sports retailer’s earnings and sales blew out analysts expectations. And FedEx stock was up over 4% after investors looked past softer-than-expected sales, to the package-delivery group’s profit forecast and plans to slash an extra $1 billion in costs.
Investors will also be watching out for the third-quarter current-account deficit at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, followed by the Conference Board’s December consumer confidence index and November existing home sales at 10 a.m.
Investors are not ready to let go of the idea that the U.S. economy remains on firmer footing, despite recession worries, said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, in a note to clients.
“Yes, the concerns are there that going in 2023, we are likely to see a recession taking place in the U.S., which the Fed denies for the time being. But given the robustness of the economy and the resilience in the economic numbers, it is unlikely to anticipate a scenario under which we will see a massive and prolonged period of crisis in the U.S.,” he told clients in a note.
Crude oil prices
CL.1,
were up over 1% to $77.25 a barrel, while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
was steady at 3.692%.