U.S. stock futures struggled for direction on Thursday, which will mark the end of a largely positive month for equities.
Investor will get updates on consumer spending and home sales, while keeping an eye out for fresh headlines over Italy and trade wars. The Trump White House could announce tariffs on the European Union as soon as Thursday, according to reports.
And oil, which helped drive a rally for stocks Wednesday, was pulling back ahead of U.S. supply data.
Need to know: The crisis chatter from Soros & Co. is ‘ridiculous,’ says Morgan Stanley’s CEO[1]
What did the main benchmarks do?
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YMM8, +0.06%[2] rose 9 points to 24,678, while S&P 500 index futures ESM8, +0.07%[3] inched up 1.4 points to 2,726. Nasdaq-100 futures NQM8, +0.13%[4] added 6.5 points, or 0.1%, to 6,993.75.
A rally for oil prices and an easing of worries about Italian politics drove a rally for stocks on Thursday[5], with the Dow DJIA, +1.26%[6] DJIA, +1.26%[7] climbing 306.33 points, or 1.3%, to close at 24,667.78, taking back most of Tuesday’s 392-point drop. The S&P 500 SPX, +1.27%[8] gained 1.3%, also recovering its losses from the prior session. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.89%[9] was up 0.9%.
With one session left to close out May, the Dow is set to mark a 2% monthly rise, the S&P 500 is poised to gain 2.9% and the Nasdaq is set to book a 5.6% increase. An even bigger gain is in store for the Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks RUT, +1.50%[10] which is set to gain nearly 7%. The index finished at an all-time high on Wednesday, up 1.4%, to 1,646.36.
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