Futures inch up as focus shifts to jobs data

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Monday ahead of manufacturing PMI data, with focus also on U.S. labor market numbers later in the week that will be parsed for cues on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy path.

AI chip firm Nvidia shed 2.8% in premarket trading, after choppy trade last week, along with some weakness in other semiconductor stocks. Megacaps such as Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon.com were slightly up.

Focus will be on ISM and S&P Global manufacturing PMIs later in the day. This follows Friday’s personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, an inflation report monitored by the Fed, which was unchanged in May and underscored the narrative of slowing inflation and resilient economic growth.

Also scheduled for the week are JOLTS job openings data on Tuesday, and ADP employment, factory orders, ISM services PMI data and minutes of the Fed’s latest policy meeting on Wednesday.

Non-farm payrolls data is due on Thursday, when trading will be shut for equities on account of U.S. Independence Day.

Traders have largely stuck to their bets of around two interest rate cuts this year, starting from September, according to LSEG FedWatch.

The Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 notched their third straight quarterly gains on Friday, with the tech-heavy index doing so for the first time in three years.

“It’s half time, and it is definitely party time, at least if you are in a large-cap, market-weighted index or the Magnificent Seven,” wrote Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

“The market continued to have no problem with a delaying Fed, geopolitical issues or the pending U.S. election … July should be dominated by earnings and, more importantly, projections for the second half of 2024.”

As the top few heavily weighted stocks have largely supported Wall Street’s upward trajectory on optimism around artificial intelligence and interest rate cuts, the blue-chip Dow has lagged its peers with a quarterly decline.

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Owing to the lack of broad-based gains, market participants have highlighted concerns over the sustenance of such a skewed rally, calling for the need of greater diversification in investor holdings.

At 5:36 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 73 points, or 0.18%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 6 points, or 0.11%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 8.75 points, or 0.04%.

Spirit AeroSystems gained 5.9% following Boeing’s deal to buy back the fuselage supplier for $4.7 billion in stock. Boeing’s shares were down 1.2%.

U.S.-listed shares of Li Auto rose 2.2% after the Chinese EV maker’s vehicle deliveries rose 46.7% year-on-year in June.

Cryptocurrency-related stocks such as Coinbase Global, Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital, and MicroStrategy gained between 1.8% and 4% after bitcoin prices jumped 4.5% to a one-week high.

(Reporting by Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)