Stock futures thumbs higher after the S&P 500 pulled back from the record

Futures contracts pegged to major US stock indices tipped higher during the overnight session on Wednesday night after the S&P 500 pulled back from record levels during the regular session.

Contracts pegged to the Dow added 53 points, while contracts pegged to the S&P 500 were up about 0.15%. Nasdaq 100 futures advanced a similar 0.15%.

The moves in the overnight session came after the S&P 500 fell from record levels during Wednesday’s regular session when pressure on technology optimism was fueled by the first round of big corporate earnings that far exceeded expectations.

The broad equity benchmark fell 0.4% after hitting a new record on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average only hit 53 points.

The Nasdaq Composite was down about 1% in regular trading, while Tesla was down nearly 4%, Netflix and Facebook were down more than 2% each, and Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple were all down at least 1%.

With the first quarter earnings season underway, investors will delve into the financial results of snack company PepsiCo, asset manager BlackRock and both Citigroup and Bank of America on Thursday.

The season kicked off in earnest with Wednesday’s bank earnings as Goldman Sachs climbed more than 2% after breaching analyst expectations with record first-quarter net earnings and earnings driven by strong performance from the company’s stock trading and investment banking units.

JPMorgan Chase also outperformed forecasts at the top and bottom, helped by a $ 5.2 billion benefit from releasing money it had previously set aside for credit losses. Bank stocks are up across the board this year, with the S&P 500’s financial sector up nearly 20% compared to the S&P 500’s 9.8%.

Investors will watch the latest Labor Department report on the number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance for the first time on Thursday. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the government to report that an additional 710,000 claims were first filed during the week ending April 10.

March’s retail sales numbers, also expected Thursday morning, are expected to show a robust rise in consumer spending, with some economists seeing gains of 10% or more thanks to the arrival of the $ 1,400 stimulus checks. The consensus forecast is a more modest 6.1% growth.

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration called for an interruption of J & J’s Covid-19 vaccine after six people in the US developed a rare blood clot condition. The announcement caused a sell-off in reopenings earlier this week, but is not expected to have a material impact on the pace of vaccine rollout in the US.