The S&P 500 futures are increasing slightly despite recent technological stock sales, the full route of bitcoin
S&P 500 futures were higher even after a week of losses on Wall Street when investors dropped shares due to concerns about the new omicron Covid variant and the Federal Reserve’s move to tighten policy.
Nasdaq stock futures were worse on Sunday after a sharp drop in bitcoin over the weekend, as investors continued to reconsider owning high-value technology stocks.
Futures contracts linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average received 1[ads1]63 points, or 0.5%. S&P 500 futures were 0.35% higher. Nasdaq 100 futures hovered around the flat line.
The Dow and S&P 500 fell 0.17% and 0.84%, respectively, on Friday. The Nasdaq Composite was underperforming, falling 1.92%.
Tesla was the biggest burden on the technology-heavy Nasdaq Friday, with shares in the electric car company falling more than 6%.
Cathie Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation Fund fell more than 5%, and all of the fund’s holdings are now in a bear market except for two shares. Teladoc Health, Zoom Video, Roku, Palantir and Twilio are some of the names that have registered major losses.
The heavy sales in technology stocks expanded to the crypto universe where prices also fell. Bitcoin traded around 57,000 dollars on Friday morning, but had plunged to around 43,000 dollars on Saturday. On Sunday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency had recovered some of its losses, but it was still trading below the $ 50,000 key level.
Slower-than-expected job growth also contributed to Friday’s broad market sales. Non-farm payrolls increased by 210,000 last month, the Department of Labor said Friday, which was below the 573,000 number of economists surveyed by the Dow Jones expected.
“A softer paycheck pulled the rug under risk sentiment,” TD Securities wrote Friday in a note to customers. When investors fled to safety, the return on the 10-year treasury fell to 1.335%, the lowest since September 21.
Unemployment was better than expected at 4.2%, down from 4.6% in October. Economists had predicted a reading of 4.5%, according to the Dow Jones.
“The job growth figure is disappointing, no doubt, especially considering that the survey period fell before we even know the name of the latest Covid-19 variant,” said Jeffrey Buchbinder, equities strategist at LPL Financial. “Although Omicron may dampen employment slightly over the next month or two, we are still confident of our expectations of strong job growth and above-average growth in the US economy in 2022,” he added.
Friday’s sale ended a volatile week for the large averages as investors evaluated new information about the omicron variant.
All three major averages ended the week in the red, with the Dow recording a fourth negative week in a row for the first time since September 2020. S&P and Nasdaq Composite were both down for the second week in a row.
Small cap names were particularly hard hit, with Russell 2000 falling 3.86% for the week.
“Despite our forecast for a flat year for the S&P 500 … we are still positive about pockets in the market, including small caps,” Bank of America said in a note to customers on Friday. “Small caps are more domestic, more prone to recovery of service costs, larger recipients of capex / reshoring and are affordable versus large caps,” the company added.
However, Bank of America said the potential upside for small caps depends on Covid’s cases being kept under control.
The Omicron variant has now been discovered in at least 15 US states, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told ABC News on Sunday.
“We know we have dozens of cases and we are following them closely. And we hear every day about more and more probable cases, so the number is likely to rise,” she said on “This Week.”
