By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are seen opening marginally lower Tuesday, although healthy monthly gains look likely as August comes to an end.
At 7:05 AM ET (1105 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was down 15 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 Futures traded largely unchanged, less than 0.1%, lower, while Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 10 points, or 0.1%.
Tuesday will be the final trading day of August, and the three main indices are poised to post strong gains for the month. The broad-based S&P 500 is up 3%, set for its seventh winning month in a row, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has climbed 4%, likely to register its third straight winning month. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average is up a more subdued 1.3%, as optimism over the pandemic ebbed in recent weeks, leading to many reflation- and reopening-themed plays being unwound.
Extraordinary monetary and fiscal stimulus has provided a powerful backdrop, and comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday indicating that the central bank would continue to be cautious in its approach to withdrawing stimulus has helped the tone this week.
Adding further support has been a stellar quarterly earnings season, although this is now coming to an end, with Crowdstrike Holdings (NASDAQ:CRWD) the highlight of a short list Tuesday. Year-on-year growth rates are likely to edge down from here, given that the second quarter of 2020 represented the height of the pandemic.
Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM) will be in the spotlight, with the video conferencing company’s stock seen slumping premarket after it reported slowing revenue growth in the second quarter, while Chinese gaming company NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) reported better-than-expected numbers.
The main economic data number Tuesday comes in the form of the Conference Board consumer confidence release for August, at 10 AM ET (1400 GMT), which is expected to fall to 124, down from 129.1 in July. The index has risen for six straight months.
That said, it’s Friday’s jobs report for August that is at the forefront of investors’ minds, especially as it coincides with the scheduled end of federal pandemic unemployment assistance in the states that haven’t stopped paying it already.
Crude prices slipped lower Tuesday in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida hitting the U.S. Gulf Coast, dropping after last week's sharp gains with the damage not as severe as had been feared.
Hurricane Ida hit output at six refineries in Louisiana that process almost 2 million barrels per day of crude, around 12% of U.S. refining capacity.
Investors now await U.S. crude oil supply data from the American Petroleum Institute, due later in the day.
By 7:05 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 1% lower at $68.55 a barrel, while the Brent contract traded 0.8% lower at $71.65.
Additionally, gold futures rose 0.42% to $1,815.95/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.4% higher at 1.1837.