Futures rise ahead of jobless claims, GDP data

September 30, 2021

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures rose on Thursday, indicating a slightly positive end to a bruising month for Wall Street, with focus turning toward economic data and government funding negotiations.

Jobless claims data, due at 08:30 a.m. ET, is expected to point to a steady recovery in the jobs market, while a separate report from the Commerce Department will likely confirm that economic growth accelerated in the second quarter.

Still, all the three major indexes are set for a monthly drop, with the benchmark S&P 500 on track to break its seven-month winning streak as worries about persistent inflation, the fallout from China Evergrande’s potential default and political wrangling over the debt ceiling rattled sentiment.

The index was, however, on course to mark its sixth straight quarterly gain, albeit its smallest, since March 2020’s drop.

President Joe Biden’s agenda was at risk of being derailed by divisions among his own Democrats, as moderates voiced anger on Wednesday at the idea of delaying a $1 trillion infrastructure bill ahead of a critical vote to avert a government shutdown.

Oil firms including Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp rose about 0.6% premarket, while big banks JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Bank of America and Goldman Sachs Group gained 0.7% each.

Amazon.com Inc, Tesla Inc, Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, Netflix Inc and Google-owner Alphabet Inc also edged higher, recovering from steep losses suffered earlier this week.

Still, excluding Netflix, the rate-sensitive FAANG stocks have lost about $415 billion in value this month after the Federal Reserve’s hawkish shift on monetary policy sparked a rally in Treasury yields and prompted investors to move into energy, banks and small-cap sectors that stand to benefit the most from an economic revival.

Netflix is set to add about 5.3% in September.

The S&P financials sector is set to rise for the sixth straight quarter, while the energy headed for its best monthly performance since February.

At 6:50 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 166 points, or 0.48%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 20.75 points, or 0.48%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 72.5 points, or 0.49%.

Perrigo Co jumped 13.8% after the drugmaker agreed to settle with Irish tax authorities over a 2018 issue by paying $1.90 billion in taxes.

(Reporting by Devik Jain and Ambar Warrick in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

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