Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., February 29, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
U.S. stock futures fell Monday, on track to extend last week’s losses as investors geared up for fresh inflation data.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dipped 182 points, or 0.5%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq-100 futures declined 0.5% and 0.6%, respectively.
Nvidia lost more than 1% in Monday’s premarket trading. While the artificial intelligence stock finished last week with gains, Friday’s drop of more than 5% marked its worst daily move since late May.
That action follows a losing week for the major averages. The 30-stock Dow slid 0.9% last week, notching its worst performance since October. The S&P 500 retreated by 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 1.2%.
Traders are preparing for February’s consumer and producer price indexes — which are set to release Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. These are among the last major economic reports before Federal Reserve leaders convene for their March policy meeting.
These releases come after Friday’s February jobs report, which gave investors mixed signals as to when exactly the Fed will begin cutting interest rates. While the U.S. economy added more jobs than economists anticipated, a higher unemployment rate and lighter-than-expected wage growth were encouraging signals the central bank could start easing up on monetary policy.
“We aren’t counting on the Fed to cut rates at its meeting later this month,” wrote Mike Dickson, head of research at Horizon Investments. “Given this recent spike, we expect the Fed to hold off until it sees at least three consecutive months of lower core services inflation. That means June at the earliest — and later in 2024 if services inflation stays sticky.”
Source Agencies
