US pre-open: Futures mixed after Dow and S&P hit fresh records

(Sharecast News) - Wall Street futures were pointing to a mixed open ahead of the bell on Friday after both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 wrapped up the previous session at all-time highs. As of 1255 GMT, Dow Jones futures were up 0.24%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the unduces opening 0.13% and 0.51% weaker, respectively.

The Dow closed 646.26 points higher on Thursday, hitting a new all-time high on the back of strong gains from high-priced stocks like Goldman Sachs, American Express and Visa, while the S&P also closed at a fresh record high despite AI jitters softening demand for tech stocks.

Discussing yesterday's trading, Trade Nation's David Morrison said: "The numbers reflected a move by investors to broaden out their exposure to equities, while diluting their concentration in the tech sector, particularly those companies with exposure to the AI trade. This saw the Nasdaq slip 0.3% by Thursday's close, as cloud computing giant Oracle's quarterly revenue miss was severely punished."

Morrison also noted that the Nasdaq came under further selling pressure this morning, after Broadcom reported strong quarterly earnings and revenues, but "severely disappointed" investors over the projected timing of returns on its AI investment.

He added: "The question now is if this selloff across tech accelerates from here, and, if so, will investors continue to reinvest the proceeds into other, relatively undervalued, corners of the US stock market?

"Given the fact that 'Big Tech' has been at the vanguard of the rally since October 2022, there's a danger that it may become the catalyst for broad-based selling. But that dynamic may be some time away, assuming it happens at all. Investor behaviour over the last three years has seen every dip as a buying opportunity. That has worked out very well, so far. But history suggests that there's always a point when a 'strategy' stops working."

On the macro front, Philadelphia Fed president Anna Paulson, Cleveland president Beth Hammack and Kansas president Jeffrey Schmid were all scheduled to deliver speeches at 1330 GMT, while Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee will speak at 1530 GMT.

No major corporate earnings were slated for release on Friday.







Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com