(Reuters) – Futures tracking the main U.S. indexes rose on Monday after Wall Street posted its worst weekly performance of 2023 on fears that the Federal Reserve would keep raising rates this year.
The blue-chip Dow erased its year-to-date gains after Friday’s selloff and the benchmark S&P 500 logged its third consecutive week of losses due to stronger-than-expected economic data and signs of elevated inflation.
Futures pointed to a slight recovery in market sentiment on Monday as some of the rate-sensitive growth stocks rose in premarket trading.
Tesla rose 2% after the electric carmaker said its plant in Brandenburg near Berlin is producing 4,000 cars per week, three weeks ahead of schedule according to a recent production plan reviewed by Reuters.
However, U.S. Treasury yields continued to rise, with the yield on two-year notes, which are the most sensitive to short-term interest rate expectations, rising as high as 4.84% to touch its strongest level since Nov 4.
Some traders are even betting on a 50-basis-point rate hike in March, although the odds are low at around 25%, after data last week showed the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, the metric by which the Fed measures its 2% inflation target, rose 5.4% last month from a year earlier.
At 05:44 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 135 points, or 0.41%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 18.25 points, or 0.46%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 64 points, or 0.53%.
Seagen Inc surged 14.9% after the Wall Street Journal reported that Pfizer was in early talks to acquire the biotech firm. Pfizer’s shares slipped 2.2%.
U.S. railroad operator Union Pacific jumped 6.4% as Chief Executive Officer Lance Fritz said he would step down this year, a move that follows calls from hedge fund Soroban Capital Partners for his ouster.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
