By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are seen opening marginally lower Friday, as investors bank recent gains after President-elect Joe Biden unveiled his new fiscal stimulus package and with the earnings season starting.
At 7 AM ET (1200 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was down 114 points, or 0.4%, S&P 500 Futures traded 13 points, or 0.4%, lower, and Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 25 points, or 0.2%.
Incoming President Joe Biden outlined details late Thursday of his new proposal to boost an economy devastated by the coronavirus outbreak. The offering totalled $1.9 trillion, and involved additional federal unemployment payments, direct payments of $1,400, as well as increased aid to states and Covid testing and vaccination programs.
A bill of this approximate size had been expected for weeks, especially when the Democrats took control of the Senate after winning two runoffs in Georgia, and had been a prime driver of the stock market gains so far this year.
U.S. equity funds saw inflows of $2.2 billion in the week ended Wednesday, according to data from financial services firm Lipper.
The main indices are currently on course for their first losing week in five, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average is still up around 1.3% year-to-date, the S&P 500 up 1.1% and the Nasdaq Composite up 1.7%.
The earnings season kicks off in earnest Friday, with the big banks first up. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) release their numbers early Friday, with healthy trading numbers expected to offset a drop in net income.
There are a substantial number of economic releases due Friday, with the December retail sales figure, at 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT), the highlight. This figure will be watched closely to see if holiday shopping picked up late in the month after November's 1.1% decline.
Other releases include Empire manufacturing, producer prices and the University of Michigan Sentiment index.
Oil prices weakened Friday amid concerns about a resurgence of Covid-19 cases in China, the world’s largest crude importer, with the country reporting the highest number of daily cases in more than 10 months on Friday.
That said, both crude benchmarks remain well above $50 a barrel, not far removed from 10-month highs, helped by additional fiscal stimulus, Covid-19 vaccine breakthroughs and a recent pledge by Saudi Arabia to deepen output cuts.
U.S. crude futures traded 1.2% lower at $52.94 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract fell 1.5% to $55.55.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.3% to $1,845.95/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.3% lower at 1.2123.