Traders work the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on May 25, 2023, in New York City.
Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images
Stock futures fell Tuesday as Wall Street struggled to carry over the positive momentum from last week.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 91 points, or 0.3%, while S&P 500 futures pulled back 0.2%. Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.2%.
Markets were closed Monday due to the Juneteenth holiday.
Investors are coming off of a strong week, even as the major averages had slipped on Friday. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite posted their best weekly performances since March, with the broad-market benchmark rising 2.6% and the tech-heavy index adding 3.25%. It was also the S&P 500’s fifth positive week in a row — a first since November 2021 — and the Nasdaq’s eighth consecutive positive week, a feat it previously accomplished in 2019.
Investors were seemingly receptive toward the central bank’s decision to skip a June rate hike last week. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told a press conference on Wednesday that the central bank has yet to make a decision on policy ahead of the July meeting. However, policymakers are forecasting two more quarter-point rate increases later this year. The decision to skip a hike in June broke the Fed’s streak of ten consecutive interest rate increases.
Despite Powell’s insistence that future Fed policy will remain data dependent, stocks have been on an upswing. Investors are trying to gauge how last week’s strong market sentiment will hold up in a shortened trading week that is light on economic data.
“We believe equity markets are as stretched as they can get with market participants wary of missing a potential new bull market,” Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson wrote in a note Tuesday.
U.S. housing starts topped estimates in May. There were 1.63 million starts last month, which was higher than the 1.39 million housing starts expected by economists polled by Dow Jones.
New York Fed President John Williams will appear with Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr at a corporate governance event in New York City on Tuesday. Fed Chair Powell is set to testify in front of Congress on Wednesday and Thursday.
In earnings, investors will look toward a quarterly report from shipping giant FedEx on Tuesday after the the closing bell.