Stock futures rose slightly on Sunday evening as Wall Street looked to shake off a rough start to August.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 ticked up 0.2%. Those for the Nasdaq 100 gained 0.3%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures added 0.1%, or 31 points.
The moves come after stocks have struggled to sustain their rally in the late summer. Last week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 0.31% and 1.90%, respectively. It was the Nasdaq Composite’s first two-week losing streak of the year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, gained 0.62% for its fourth positive week in five.
The upcoming week could be driven by insights into the state of the U.S. consumer, with earnings reports due from Home Depot, Target and Walmart. Retail sales data from July is also due out on Tuesday morning.
The earnings reports are coming after a mixed batch of inflation reports last week, which show that price increased have eased from their post-pandemic peak but are still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
“One open question is if businesses will seek to preserve their profit margins by passing increased wholesale prices onto customers and if they do so, if customers balk at the increases. The potentially higher prices would also influence future CPI readings, which in turn could provide more fodder for hawkish members of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee to argue for additional rate hikes. Meanwhile, corporate earnings are showing the strain of a slowing economy and higher financing costs,” Jose Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, said in a note to clients on Friday.
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