Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on April 1, 2024.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
The U.S. on Sunday as investors grappled with a host of issues, including Iran’s missile and drone attacks on Israel and a spike in stock market volatility that pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst week of the year last week. Stock futures prices managed to rise.
Futures, which track the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 90 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures rose 0.2% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.3%.
Gold futures fell slightly to $2,373 an ounce. Bullion prices hit record levels last week and are up 15% this year as investors seek safety from persistently high inflation and geopolitical tensions.
On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 476 points and the S&P 500 had its worst day since January, due to lingering inflation concerns and a poor start to the first-quarter earnings season. The losses sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 2.4% last week, its worst week since March 2023 and the second straight week of declines. The S&P 500 index fell 1.5%, its worst week since October 2023. The Nasdaq Composite Index has been negative for the third consecutive week.
Iran launched drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night, marking the first direct attack on Israel from Iranian territory. Although most of the threats have been thwarted, concerns of retaliation remain.
Oil prices, which had risen over the past few weeks before the attack on rising tensions in the Middle East, fell slightly on Sunday.
“The situation remains dangerous, but the risks to oil and markets are slightly smaller than feared on Friday, the eve of the attack,” said Krishna Guha, senior managing director and head of the global policy and central bank strategy team at Evercore ISI. Maybe,” he said. Sunday memo.
Guha added that the key question that remains is how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will respond to the attack. Guha noted that the Biden administration has made clear it does not want Israeli retaliation.
“If Prime Minister Netanyahu appears intent on following U.S. advice, there may be some element of a bailout rebound in markets on Monday.However, our colleagues on the energy team say we do not expect a significant recovery in oil prices. We haven’t,” Guha said. .
On the earnings side, investors will be keeping an eye on Monday morning’s results from Goldman Sachs and M&T Bank. Further economic indicators are also expected to be released. Retail sales data will be released on Monday, as well as February corporate inventory data and March manufacturing numbers.
U.S. Treasury yields have been rising for much of last week after the consumer price index (CPI) beat expectations for three consecutive days. But interest rates fell on Friday as investors bought U.S. Treasuries as a safe haven from geopolitical tensions. Prices move inversely to yields.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. beat analysts’ profit estimates in its first-quarter report on Friday, but investors worried about what the company will generate from its loans over the next year, sending the stock down 6%. CEO Jamie Dimon also expressed concern about the “unstable” global situation and “sustained inflationary pressures”.
