S&P 500 futures fell again on Tuesday as the benchmark remains stuck just below record levels.
Futures on the S&P 500 lost 0.1% and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures shed about 100 points. Nasdaq-100 futures were flat, giving up earlier gains.
Multiple global websites were experiencing an outage early Tuesday, but the size of the issue and how widespread it is was unclear. Futures, especially those for the tech-heavy Nasdaq, appeared to take a leg down when news of the outage spread, but it was unclear at this point if the move was related.
Tesla, which is down 10% in the last 1 month, rebounded by 3% in premarket trading to pace Nasdaq stocks. Delta Air Lines gained 1.5% after an upgrade from Jefferies on optimism about international and business travel.
On Monday, the S&P 500 dipped 0.08%. However, the benchmark is just 0.27% away from its intraday record hit earlier in May. Since hitting a record on May 7, the S&P 500 has struggled amid inflation concerns, trading mostly sideways.
The Dow fell 126 points, or 0.36%, in the regular session Monday for its worst daily performance since May 19.
The Nasdaq Composite edged 0.5% higher on Monday, boosted by shares of Biogen. The biopharmaceutical stock surged 38% after the FDA approved its groundbreaking Alzheimer’s drug.
Meme stocks continued their rally Monday. Shares of AMC Entertainment jumped 14.8%, and BlackBerry and GameStop shares also popped double-digits. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday it’s watching ongoing volatility in the market and vowed to protect retail investors.
AMC was up slightly in premarket trading Tuesday.
Investors are awaiting new inflation signals later this week following Friday’s jobs report. While the U.S. added fewer jobs than expected in May, the unemployment rate dropped to 5.8% from 6.1% and markets reacted positively to the readout.
“The reflation trade is taking a bit of a backseat even as Friday’s ‘Goldilocks’ payrolls report served to quell some concerns that the economy might be doing a bit too well,” Goldman Sachs’ Chris Hussey said in a note Monday. “Today’s market action shows that these concerns might be here to stay.”
May’s consumer price index is set to be released Thursday. Economists are expecting the CPI to rise 4.7% from a year earlier, according to Dow Jones. In April, the CPI increased 4.2% on an annual basis, the fastest rise since 2008.
All eyes are on the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting scheduled for June 15-16 as investors look for what Fed officials will say about inflation and monetary policy. Recent comments by officials suggest the Fed is beginning to prepare markets for tapering its asset purchases.
