Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., February 29, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
U.S. stock futures fell slightly Sunday night after the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed out its worst week since October. Investors are also looking ahead to inflation data due out later this week.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dipped 21 points, or 0.05%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.17% and 0.38%, respectively.
Wall Street is coming off a losing week for the major averages. The 30-stock Dow slid 0.93% last week, marking its worst performance since October. The S&P 500 dipped 0.26%, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.17%.
Investors took profits in some market leaders as exceedingly high valuations have many concerned stocks could be due for a pullback after this year’s rally. Five of the Magnificent Seven companies declined last week, with Nvidia and Meta Platforms alone pulling away from the pack.
The February jobs data on Friday also gave investors mixed signals as to when the Federal Reserve could be expected to cut interest rates. While the U.S. economy added more jobs than economists anticipated, a higher unemployment rate and lighter-than-expected wage growth were encouraging signals the central bank could start easing up on monetary policy.
Investors will seek more signs of progress on inflation this week. February’s consumer and producer price indexes — that are set to release Tuesday and Thursday, respectively — come after January’s surprisingly hot report dashed hopes the path toward the Fed’s 2% target will be easy. Traders will get their last major economic reports before Fed leaders convene for their March policy meeting.
“We aren’t counting on the Fed to cut rates at its meeting later this month,” wrote Mike Dickson, head of research at Horizon Investments. “Given this recent spike, we expect the Fed to hold off until it sees at least three consecutive months of lower core services…
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