S&P 500, Nasdaq set for gains after upbeat data, megacaps recover

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THE S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were set to open higher on Tuesday, as megacap stocks recovered and upbeat capital goods orders data allayed concerns about a slowing U.S. economy in the face of Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes.

The Dow, however, was weighed down by an 8.7% fall in Walgreens Boots Alliance as the pharmacy chain cut its fiscal year profit forecast on lower demand for COVID-19 tests and vaccines.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures got a boost from data showing that orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, increased 0.7% in May, while economists polled by Reuters had forecast orders would remain unchanged.

New home sales and consumer confidence data are due later in the day.

“The sentiment is building that the Fed is certainly near the end of its rate hike regime, and markets will be looking for any indication that will help resolve the ambiguity that the Fed presented in the last meeting,” said Peter Andersen, founder of Andersen Capital Management.

Market participants are also focusing on the European Central Bank Forum in Sintra, Portugal where several key policymakers including Fed Chair Jerome Powell will speak this week.

A winning run on Wall Street came to a halt last week after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said there were more rate hikes on the cards. Traders have baked in a 76.9% chance the Fed will raise interest rates by 25 bps to 5.25%-5.50% range at its July meeting, according to CME Group’s Fedwatch tool.

Despite the recent weakness, the main U.S. stock indexes are set to record second-quarter gains, powered by a rally in growth stocks, upbeat earnings reports and hopes that the Fed will soon end its monetary tightening campaign.

At 8:40 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 9 points, or 0.03%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 10.5 points, or 0.24%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 77.5 points, or 0.52%.

Market heavyweights such as Amazon, Tesla and Nvidia rose about 1% each.

Meta Platforms added 1.5% after Citigroup raised its price target on the stock to the highest on Wall Street.

Snowflake climbed 4.1% after the cloud data analytics company announced partnership with Nvidia to allow customers to build AI models using their own data.

U.S.-listed shares of Chinese firms such as Alibaba Group and JD.com rose nearly 2% after Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced stimulus plans and said economic growth in the second quarter will be higher than the first.

Google-parent Alphabet slipped 0.5% after Bernstein downgraded the stock to “market perform.”

Lordstown Motors slumped 59.9% as the U.S. electric truck manufacturer filed for bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale after it failed to resolve a dispute over a promised investment from Foxconn. – Reuters



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