BENGALURU: U.S. stock indexes were set to open higher on Monday after last week's blockbuster jobs data soothed some fears about an economic slowdown, but investors remained cautious as it also added to expectations of a hawkish Federal Reserve.
The focus this week will be on consumer prices data on Wednesday.
The S&P 500 has bounced back 13% from its mid-June lows, but investors fear that signs of persistent inflation this week could further bolster the Fed's case for aggressive monetary policy tightening.
"While it's clear the Fed needs to continue tightening policy, there are still about six weeks until the next meeting and we remind investors that economic data can change very quickly," said Robert Schein, chief investment officer, Blanke Schein Wealth Management.
"The CPI data will help to confirm if the Fed's tightening efforts have been successful in starting to tame inflation or if continued Fed tightening is needed."
U.S. rate futures have priced in a 68.5% chance of a 75-basis-point hike at the Fed's September meeting, up from about 41% before payrolls data on Friday beat market expectations.
Banks that tend to benefit from a higher interest rate environment extended their gains in trading before the bell.
Megacap growth and technology stocks edged higher, with Tesla up 2.3%. The U.S. electric-car maker signed contracts worth about $5 billion to buy materials for their batteries from nickel processing companies in Indonesia, according to a CNBC report.
Other high-growth stocks such as Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc gained as U.S. Treasury yields pulled back from sharp highs in the previous session. The benchmark 10-year yield declined 1.6% in early trading.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate on Sunday passed a sweeping $430 billion bill intended to fight climate change, lower drug prices and raise some corporate taxes.
"All in all, it's a net positive. Biotech and pharma should rebound after some uncertainty because it (the bill) is less onerous than initially anticipated as it relates to negotiating drug prices," said Thomas Hayes, managing member, Great Hill Capital LLC, New York.
Hayes added that a lot of companies might accelerate their stock buybacks as they now have incentive to aggressively initiate buybacks before the 1% tax kicks in, helping the equity markets overall.
Nvidia Corp fell 7% on saying it expects second-quarter revenue of about $6.70 billion, down 19% from the prior quarter, largely hurt by weakness in its gaming business.
Signify Health Inc jumped 15.1% on a media report that CVS Health Corp was looking to buy the health technology company.
Global Blood Therapeutics climbed 4.6% on Pfizer's $5.4 billion deal for the blood disorder drugmaker.
At 08:50 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 164 points, or 0.50%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 25.75 points, or 0.62%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 102.25 points, or 0.77%.
Palantir Technologies Inc dropped 14.1% after the data analytics software company lowered its annual revenue forecast as the timing of some large government contracts remained uncertain.
Tyson Foods Inc fell 3.4% on missing quarterly profit expectations.
- Reuters
