US stock futures moved higher in early trading and signaled gains at Tuesday’s open as investors watch earnings reports from some of the country’s largest banks.
Dow futures rose 90 points. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively.
On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave a gain of 500 points to end the day with 10 points. The S&P 500 ended the day with a 0.95% drop, having previously recovered 1% to trade briefly positive during the year. Monday marked the first time since early June that the S&P 500 traded a positive year to date.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.1%, pushed lower by losses on Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. The heavy tech index rose nearly 2% to its highest from Monday’s session.
The Nasdaq-100, which is made up of the 100 largest non-financial companies in the Nasdaq Composite, briefly traded above 11,000 for the first time before falling 2.2%.
“I think what we are seeing here is the continuing push between growing cases of coronavirus versus states that reopened economies and the market is grappling with balance and how it will work over time,” Susan Schmidt, director of US Stocks from Aviva Investors, they told CNBC.
Earlier in the Monday session, the actions were buoyed by the news that Pfizer and German biotech BioNTech SE received the FDA fast-track designation for two of the companies’ four candidate vaccines against coronavirus.
The cases continued to reach record levels across the United States over the weekend, as several critical states continue to see Covid-19 deaths gradually increase, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. California Governor Gavin Newsom is ordering some interior businesses, including restaurants, bars, movie theaters, and museums, to re-close across the state as new cases continue to escalate.
Sentiment on Wall Street also got a boost when Pepsico reported better-than-expected earnings on Monday.
Bank earnings begin Tuesday with Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo ready to report ahead of the opening bell.
While corporate earnings are expected to drop 44% in the second quarter, the financial sector is expected to see a more than 52% decline in earnings, according to Refinitiv.
“What is so influential about the banks reporting early in the earnings season at times like these is that we really have the opinion of the bank management team about what is happening,” added Schmidt. “Banks are the foundation of our American economy. They are there to lend to small businesses and manage the deposits of retail consumers.”
Delta Air Lines and Fastenal also report quarterly earnings results on Tuesday.
A key indicator of inflation trends, the Labor Department will release the Consumer Price Index (CPI) at 8:30 am Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones estimate that consumer prices in the United States rose 0.5% in June, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
Subscribe to CNBC PRO for exclusive insights and analysis, and live business day scheduling from around the world.
.
