Stock futures were roughly flat Wednesday evening as investors awaited Thursday’s initial unemployment claims report and considered the historic levels of volatility in crude oil prices this week, which at least temporarily stabilized.
A recent set of better than feared corporate earnings results from companies including Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Texas Instruments (TXN) and Netflix (NFLX), along with hopes for a quick passage of further fiscal stimulus from Congress and incrementally more positive data on the domestic coronavirus outbreak, sent stocks higher during the regular session Wednesday. The S&P 500 rose more than 2% by market close, snapping a two-day losing streak.
Oil prices, roiled by wild volatility in recent days, steadied somewhat as steep selling abated from earlier in the week. June West Texas intermediate crude oil futures rose 5.7% to $14.56 per barrel as of 6:00 p.m. ET Wednesday.
Meanwhile, investors braced for the Labor Department’s report on weekly initial unemployment claims Thursday morning, which is expected to show another 4.5 million individuals filed new jobless claims. This would mark a fifth straight week of multi-million levels of new unemployment claims, albeit a decline from last week’s 5.245 million.
“‘Less terrible,’ though, is not the same as ‘good,’” Ian Shepherdson chief economist for Pantheon Economics, said in a note Wednesday. “It’s certainly true that the initial wave of layoffs in the hospitality sector is over—you can only close a restaurant once—but we’re worried now that layoffs are moving away from the front line and working through supply chains, into the business services sector.”
“The lack of precedent means we have no idea how far this will go, but our initial hope that claims would drop below one million per week by the end of May is now touch-and-go,” he added.
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Here were the main moves at the start of the overnight session for U.S. equity futures, as of 6:05 p.m. ET Wednesday evening:
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S&P 500 futures (ES=F): up 1.75 points, or +1.75% to 2,790.25
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Dow futures (YM=F): up 15 points, or +0.06% to 23,371.00
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Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): up 2.25 points, or +0.03% to 8,640.25
Residents of New York City has been requested to stay at home during the Coronavirus pandemic resulting in the streets looking deserted. A landscape view of the deserted looking NYSE on a Wednesday afternoon. The Trinity Church is seen at the background. Most churches are still open for public access. Usually this place gets crowded at this time of the day and week.
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