Stock futures are little changed as S&P 500 looks for second straight positive week
U.S. stock futures were little changed on Thursday evening after a bounce-back session on Wall Street.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 11 points, or less than 0.1%. The S&P 500 futures were flat, while Nasdaq 100 futures dipped about 0.1%.
The move comes after a solid session for stocks on Wednesday in which the S&P rose 1.4%, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.9% and the Dow added 349 points. Those gains largely erased losses from Tuesday.
With one trading session left in the week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are up 1.3% and 2.1%, respectively. Both are on track for their second-straight winning week. The Dow is down 0.1% week to date.
The S&P 500 is now up more than 8% from its recent lows earlier this month. The rebound has come despite no concrete signs of progress in the war in Ukraine and the fact that the Federal Reserve indicated last week that it expects several more rate hikes this year, making some Wall Street professionals skeptical of the rally.
“I think this is a market that has moved very far, very fast on this assumption that the Fed knows exactly what they’re doing and that they’re going to land the plan with perfection,” Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said on “Closing Bell: Overtime.” “And I just don’t think that risk premiums are sufficient.”
On Friday, investors will get a new consumer sentiment reading from March as well as pending home sales data from February.
The war in Europe could also be key for markets. President Joe Biden said at a NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday that the U.S. would respond if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine.