Stock market futures moved higher early Monday as Wall Street aimed to recover from a decline late last week. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 303 points, or 0.7%. S&P 500 futures increased by 0.5%, while Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.4%. This rebound follows a stock market drop on Thursday and Friday, which resulted in the Dow finishing down 2.51% for its worst weekly performance since October. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 1.66% and 2.51%, respectively, for the week. On Friday alone, the Dow dropped over 700 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq shed 1.7% and 2.2%.
These declines were driven by February data raising concerns about the U.S. economy. Purchasing managers’ index numbers indicated a contraction in the U.S. services sector for the month, and the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index came in weaker than expected.
The upcoming week includes key readings on corporate earnings and the economy. Earnings reports from Home Depot and Lowe’s on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, will provide insights into how U.S. consumers are faring. Nvidia’s earnings report on Wednesday evening could be particularly impactful, as the artificial intelligence-linked chipmaker remains one of the largest stocks by market cap. This will be Nvidia’s first earnings report since the emergence of China’s DeepSeek large language model, which raised questions about the sustainability of the AI trade.
“It’s definitely one of the top things that the markets will be looking at [this] week. They really want to see whether the DeepSeek news … is solid in terms of disrupting these types of companies’ margins in the future,” said Lale Akoner, global market analyst at eToro.
On Friday, the January reading of the personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, will be released. Despite last week’s stock market slide amid renewed concerns about U.S. economic growth, the market indexes remain within 4% of their record highs.
— news from CNBC