Dow Jones Today: Stock Futures Down Slightly as Trading Kicks Off After Four-Straight Weeks of Declines for S&P 500
Stock futures are mixed Monday morning as the U.S. equities market struggles to recover from a recent sell-off spurred by political and economic uncertainty.
Futures tied to the the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.1% in recent trading, while those linked to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose 0.1% and 0.3%, respectively. The major indexes posted their biggest one-day gains of the year on Friday, as the U.S. stock market closed out a volatile week of trading on a high note.
Despite Friday’s rally, the benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite have posted losses for four consecutive weeks, while the Dow’s decline last week was its worst in two years. Investor sentiment has been dented by uncertainty about the impact of policies coming our of the Trump White House, most notably tariffs, and concerns that U.S. economic growth is slowing.
The big event on the economic front this week will be the two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee, which is scheduled to start tomorrow. While no change in interest rates is expected, market participants will closely scrutinize Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s post-meeting remarks as well as the quarterly economic projections from committee members that are set to be released.
Shares of major technology companies, which have been among the hardest hit during the recent sell-off, were mostly higher ahead of the opening bell Monday. AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) was up about 1.3%, while Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META) and Broadcom (AVGO) rose slightly. EV maker Tesla (TSLA), which has lost more than half its value since hitting a record high in December, was down 0.7% this morning, while Microsoft (MSFT) also lost ground.
Shares of Affirm Holdings (AFRM) were down 6% following reports that rival Klarna will replace Affirm as Walmart’s (WMT) exclusive provider of buy-now, pay-later loans. Klarna has also filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which has fallen in recent weeks as worries about the economy have grown, was at 4.32% in recent trading, up from 4.31% at Friday’s close. The yield affects borrowing costs on all sorts of loans, notably mortgages.
Gold futures were holding steady at around $3,000 an ounce, near a fresh record high, while West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, rose 1.4% to $68.10 per barrel. Bitcoin was at $83,000, little-changed from its levels at the end of last week.