Traders work on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on February 29, 2024 in New York City, the United States.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
U.S. stock futures fell on Monday after the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed its worst week since October. Investors are also looking forward to inflation data due later this week.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 74 points, or 0.19%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.21% and 0.34%, respectively.
Wall Street’s major indexes had a losing week. The 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.93% last week, their worst performance since October. The S&P 500 fell 0.26% and the Nasdaq fell 1.17%.
Investors took profits in some of the market’s leading stocks because of stretched valuations, with many worried that stocks could pull back after this year’s gains. Five of the seven largest companies posted declines last week, with only Nvidia and Meta Platforms performing well.
February employment data released on Friday also gave investors mixed signals about when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates. Although the U.S. economy added more jobs than economists expected, rising unemployment and lower-than-expected wage growth are encouraging signs that the Federal Reserve may begin to ease monetary policy.
Investors will be looking for more signs of inflation progress this week. February’s consumer price index and producer price index, to be released on Tuesday and Thursday respectively, come after unexpectedly hot reports in January dashed hopes of an easy path to the Fed’s 2% target. Traders will get the latest major economic reports ahead of Federal Reserve leaders’ March policy meeting.
“We do not expect the Fed to cut rates at its meeting later this month,” wrote Mike Dickson, director of research at Horizon Investments. “Given the recent spike, we expect the Fed to delay raising rates until core service inflation is at least Three months in a row of declines. That means June at the earliest, or later in 2024 if services inflation remains sticky.”
Regarding earnings, software platform Oracle is scheduled to report after the market close on Monday.
About The Author
