A man wears a protective mask as he walks past the New York Stock Exchange on the corner of Wall and Broad streets during the coronavirus outbreak in New York City, New York, U.S., March 13, 2020.
Lucas Jackson | Reuters
Stock futures fell in overnight trading on Wednesday as investors evaluate the pace of economic recovery.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped about 130 points, and the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.
The moves in futures followed two straight days of losses for the 30-stock Dow and S&P 500 as investors ditched reopening trades for the megacap tech names. The S&P 500 dipped 0.5% on Wednesday, and the Dow slid about 280 points. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.7% to a record closing high of 10,020.35, also its first-ever close above 10,000.
The Nasdaq has risen for eight days in the past nine sessions, bringing its 2020 gains to nearly 10%. The S&P 500 is down 1.2% this year after briefly turning green for 2020 earlier this week. The Dow is down 5.4% for 2020.
On Wednesday, investors assessed the Federal Reserve’s updates on the economy and monetary policy. The policymakers voted unanimously to keep interest rates unchanged and indicated no rate increases through 2022.
“The Fed understands we are just in the beginning phases of the economic recovery and making rash changes to policy or forward guidance is premature at this time,” Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management, said in an email.
The Fed also said it will at least maintain the current pace of bond purchases for the coming months. Additionally, it expects the U.S. economy to contract by 6.5% in 2020 before expanding by 5% in 2021.
Investors are awaiting the new jobless claim data for the week ending June 6, which is set to come out at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect filings for unemployment insurance claims to total 1.595 million last week, which is down from 1.775 million in the week before.
Meanwhile, concerns about a second wave of coronavirus cases have risen as U.S. states push deeper into reopening. Texas has reported three consecutive days of record-breaking Covid-19 hospitalizations.
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