U.S. stock futures rose Wednesday, following weakness in equities in the previous session.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures traded 37 points higher, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures gained 0.2% and Nasdaq-100 futures climbed 0.4%.
Shares of Apple and Amazon gained 0.9% each in the premarket to lead the early advance. Netflix and Alphabet traded higher as well.
Sentiment was kept in check as the U.S. reported a record daily spike of more than 60,000 coronavirus cases. That latest surge brought the total number of confirmed U.S. cases to nearly 3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
“The COVID numbers in the US remain troubling and this is beginning to create economic headwinds,” said Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, in a note.
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 397 points, or 1.5%, breaking a two-day winning streak. The Dow was brought down by a 4.8% drop in Boeing. The S&P 500 also registered a loss, slipping 1.1%, to break a five day win streak.
The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.86%, after notching its 27th intraday all-time high of the year earlier in the session on Tuesday. The technology-heavy index was positive for most of the day thanks to strength in Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Netflix, which all hit record highs.
“While significant gains in technology stocks kept the market afloat yesterday, even these market darlings capitulated during the afternoon hours today,” Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group, told CNBC.
Stocks that hinge on the reopening of the economy dragged down the broader market as investors digested a resurgence in coronavirus cases in the U.S. More than 2.93 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S. along with at least 130,306 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
“Concerns about rising U.S. Covid case counts continued to shake confidence in reopening efforts about the country,” Paulsen added.
Sentiment was boosted when the U.S. government awarded drugmaker Novavax a $1.6 billion contract to develop a coronavirus vaccine, the biggest amount yet granted under the White House’s “Operation Warp Speed.”
