U.S. Market Rises in Pre-market, Dow Futures Up Over 180 Points Now

The markets seem to start coming back to life. Dow futures are gaining points today in the pre-market.

Futures contracts tied to the major U.S. market indexes rose on Thursday as investors monitored Wall Street’s rise so far this week. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures indicated an opening gain of nearly 100 points when the pre-market trading resumes on Thursday. At 6:50 am ET it was rising over 150 points or 0.62%. Now in the pre-market Dow futures are around 180 points up. S&P 500 futures are also showing a positive open for the index. Nasdaq-100 futures were down 0.31%.

The Nasdaq Composite, S&P 500 and Dow all extended week-to-date gains during Wednesday’s regular trading session and finished the day up 0.77%, 1.48% and 2.2% respectively. The S&P 500 closed at its highest level since March, above 3,000 while the Dow was growing yesterday in the pre-market and jumped 553 points to finish Wednesday’s session above 25,000. It is its own highest close since March.

Reopenings after Lockdowns Help Market Rise

Equity of companies was mostly up because of numerous reopenings, such as the airlines and retailers that led the major indexes higher during the last few days. Kohl’s Corporation (NYSE: KSS), Nordstrom Inc (NYSE: JWN) and Gap Inc (NYSE: GPS) all rose at least 14% on Wednesday while Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE: DAL), American Airlines Group Inc (NASDAQ: AAL), and United Airlines Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: UAL) rose 2.6%, 7.5%, and 3.8%, respectively.

On the other hand, those stocks that outperformed because of lockdowns in March have started to fall behind during the recent few days. Zoom Video Communications Inc (NASDAQ: ZM) fell 1.2% while Shopify Inc (NYSE: SHOP), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Teladoc Health Inc (NYSE: TDOC) fell 2.3%, 0.6% and 1.1%, respectively.

Art Hogan, the chief market strategist at National Securities said that “this is a rotation that we should get used to,” said. He noted the broader indexes could be under pressure at the start of it since some of the stay-at-home names make up a big chunk of the S&P 500?s market cap.

Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia Philip Lowe gave pretty encouraging comments regarding the country’s economic situation and the overall efficiency of efforts in order to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Lowe stated that since the nation’s health outcomes are better than expected, “it is possible that the economic downturn will not be severe as earlier thought.”

V-Pattern Coming Upwards

The Department of Labor is scheduled to release the latest update to initial jobless claims later today.

All 50 states in the U.S. have reopened their economies to some extent. On Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said the state would allow professional sports teams to resume practice and competitions.

Michael Darda, MKM Partners chief market strategist and chief economist stated:

“The market has been making a V-pattern upward and there’s been a tremendous amount of skepticism around that but we are just starting now to see some evidence in the data turning. Some better than expected housing numbers. As reopening gets underway, virtually all states now we are starting to see activity bounce off of very low levels.”

Let’s also not forget that on Wednesday, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported a sixth-straight weekly rise in mortgage applications. Data showed new home sales in April were above predictions. Sales of new U.S. single-family homes increased by 623,000 last month, beating estimates of 490,000, according to Dow Jones.

Author: Teuta Franjkovic

Experienced creative professional focusing on financial and political analysis, editing daily newspapers and news sites, economical and political journalism, consulting, PR and Marketing. Teuta’s passion is to create new opportunities and bring people together.