U.S. stock futures pointed to a slight rebound on Friday as yields reversed some of the gains which caused a sell-off for tech stocks in the prior session.
Futures contracts for the Dow Jones Industrial Average implied an opening gain of about 41 points. Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.2%. Futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 bounced 0.5%.
The moves come after the stock market struggled on Thursday, with tech stocks being particularly hard hit. The Nasdaq Composite fell 3%, with Apple and Amazon seeing slightly larger losses. The Dow and S&P 500 slipped 0.5% and 1.5%, respectively.
The 10-year Treasury yield fell 3 basis points to 1.69%, retreating from a 14-month high a day earlier (1 basis point equals 0.01%).
Shares of Zoom Video and Peloton, speculative tech shares that have been hit by valuation fears, rebounded by more than 1% in early premarket trading.
The weakness in stocks Thursday was caused by a spike in bond yields, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield breaking above 1.7%, its highest level since January of last year. Yields move inverse of prices. Rising bond yields, which can signal confidence about the economic recovery and fears about inflation, can also make high growth stocks look less attractive to investors.
The underperformance of tech and other growth stocks on Thursday resembles a trend seen in recent months as value stocks have surged. However, growth stocks have had a few strong days over the past two weeks and this is muddying the waters, said Michael Mullaney, director of global markets research at Boston Partners.
“If you look at the price pattern on a day-to-day basis for the last now seven days, we’ve got a ping-pong match going on. One day it’s been growth, one day it’s been value,” said Mullaney. “I’m not sure if that’s indicating we’re at some kind of inflection point where growth might get a bounce here.”
Energy stocks were also hit hard on Thursday, with the price of West Texas Intermediate crude sliding by more than 7%. The slow rollout of vaccines and rise in Covid cases in Europe have weighed on the near-term demand outlook for oil.
Shares of FedEx jumped 3% in premarket trading after the delivery company beat expectations on the top and bottom lines for its fiscal third quarter.
Nike‘s stock slipped by 2% in early trading after third-quarter revenues were weaker than anticipated.
For the week, the Dow is up about 0.3%, while the S&P 500 is off by 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite is down 1.5%.
