By Johann M Cherian
(Reuters) – The Nasdaq index was set to open higher on Monday as beaten-down megacap growth stocks gained, while Meta Platforms climbed on reports of fresh layoffs.
Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc, Tesla Inc and Microsoft Corp added between 0.1% and 1.1% before the bell.
“(Investors) have been holding back during the regime of rate hikes because they believed it would kill the growth of technology type stocks,” said Peter Andersen, founder of Andersen Capital Management.
Andersen added that the Fed is now signaling that its near the end of its tightening cycle, which could provide an added boost to such high-growth firms.
All U.S. indexes clocked their worst declines last year since the financial crisis of 2008, led by a 33% slump in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, on fears that the Federal Reserve would tip the economy into a recession with its hawkish monetary policy.
While money markets are expecting rates to peak at 5.2% in July, a resilient labor market has lifted hopes of a milder-than-expected recession.
Meanwhile, Meta rose 2.2% on reports over the weekend that the Facebook parent is preparing to announce a fresh round of job cuts.
At 8:49 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 14 points, or 0.04%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 3.5 points, or 0.09%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 40.5 points, or 0.33%.
Defense firms such as Boeing Co, Raytheon Technologies Corp, Lockheed Martin Corp and L3harris Technologies Inc added between 0.2% and 0.8%.
Novavax Inc added 1.8% after the U.S. government agreed to buy 1.5 million more doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.
Fidelity National Information Services Inc plunged 14.6% following its decision to spin off its merchant payments business.
Markets now await January inflation on Tuesday and retail sales data later in the week to reassess their bets on the central bank’s monetary policy path.
(Reporting by Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Sriraj Kalluvila)
