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U.S. stock futures extended gains in early trading on Wednesday, following a record close overnight, as investors looked ahead to a pair of labor market data before Wall Street’s early close ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.
Stocks rose again on Tuesday, pushing the S&P 500 to its first-ever close above 5,500, extending the benchmark’s year-to-date advance to about 15.5%.
Technology stocks again posted gains during the session, led by a 10.2% advance for Tesla Inc. (Tesla) This came after stronger-than-expected second-quarter delivery figures, with the Nasdaq up 0.84% and closing above 18,000 points, an all-time high.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields were little changed overnight at 4.442%, with the 2-year note trading at 4.754%, despite some dovish comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at a central bank forum in Portugal that added to the case for a rate cut in the fall.
Stocks are expected to post modest gains at the end of the holiday-shortened first half of the week, with markets set to close at 1:00 p.m. ET ahead of tomorrow’s Fourth of July holiday celebrations, with investors focused on the June employment report from payroll processing group ADP and weekly jobless claims from the Labor Department.
The US Federal Reserve is also scheduled to release the minutes of its June policy meeting, but the release is expected at 2:00 p.m. ET, about an hour after markets officially close for the day.
As the trading day begins on Wall Street, S&P 5000 futures are pointing to an opening gain of 2 points, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average seen rising 55 points.
The Nasdaq, which is up 20.1% for the year, is expected to gain 15 points, thanks to pre-market gains by Nvidia. (NVDA program) apple (Apple company) And Tesla.
Other stocks seeing moves include Eli Lilly (Layla) The company’s stock rose 0.63% to $912.44 a share after it won FDA approval for its early-stage Alzheimer’s treatment late Tuesday.
Paramount Global (to) Shares of Skydance Media also rose 9.1% to $11.70 a share, after reports that Shari Redstone and National Amusements had reached an agreement to sell their controlling stake to Skydance Media for about $1.75 billion.
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In overseas markets, the UK’s FTSE 100 index rose 0.54% ahead of tomorrow’s national election, which is expected to deliver a large majority for the left-wing Labour Party and elevate its leader Keir Starmer to the position of prime minister.
Meanwhile, the pan-European STOXX 600 index jumped 0.85% in Frankfurt, with technology stocks leading the advance.
In Asia, the Nikkei 225 added another 1.26% overnight to remain above the 40,000 mark in Tokyo, while the MSCI ex-Japan index for the region was up 0.92% at the close of trading.
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