Stock futures are lower Monday morning as the U.S. equities market struggles to recover from recent losses spurred by political and economic uncertainty.
Futures tied to the the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were down 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively, in recent trading, while those linked to the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 0.1%. The major indexes posted their biggest one-day gains of the year on Friday, as the U.S. stock market closed out a volatile week of trading on a high note.
Despite Friday’s rally, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have posted losses for four consecutive weeks, while the Dow’s decline last week was its worst in two years. Investor sentiment has been dented by uncertainty about the impact of policies coming our of the Trump White House, most notably tariffs, and concerns that U.S. economic growth is slowing.
Market participants will be keeping a close eye on economic data this morning, including reports on retail sales and homebuilder confidence. The big event on the economic front this week will be the two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee, which is scheduled to start tomorrow. While no change in interest rates is expected, market participants will closely scrutinize Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s post-meeting remarks as well as the quarterly economic projections from committee members that are set to be released.
Shares of major technology companies, which have been among the hardest hit during the recent sell-off, were mixed ahead of the opening bell Monday. EV maker Tesla (TSLA), which has lost more than half its value since hitting a record high in December, was down 1% this morning, while Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOG) also lost ground. AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) was up about 1%, while Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META) and Broadcom (AVGO) fell slightly.
Shares of Affirm Holdings (AFRM) tumbled more than 10% in pre-market trading following reports that rival Klarna will replace Affirm as Walmart’s (WMT) exclusive provider of buy-now, pay-later loans. Klarna has also filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which has fallen in recent weeks as worries about the economy have grown, was at 4.28% this morning, down from 4.31% at Friday’s close. The yield affects borrowing costs on all sorts of loans, notably mortgages.
Gold futures were up 0.2% at $3,010 an ounce, near a fresh record high, while West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, rose 1.4% to $68.10. Bitcoin was at $83,400, little-changed from its levels at the end of last week.