By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - U.S. stocks are seen opening mostly lower Tuesday, consolidating after a strong start to May ahead of another busy earnings week.
At 7:05 AM ET (1205 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 10 points, less than 0.1%, S&P 500 Futures traded 4 points, or 0.1%, lower, and Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 42 points, or 0.3%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 0.7% on Monday, the S&P 500 was up 0.3% on the first trading day of the month, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.4%, as signs of a faster reopening of the economy pushed cyclical corners of the market, including energy and materials, higher.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, some of the hardest hit U.S. states, said they will lift most coronavirus-related restrictions on business and social life within two weeks.
The DJIA and S&P 500 indices are up over 11% this calendar year, helped not only by the economic reopening but also by vast sums of fiscal and monetary stimulus, vaccine optimism and accelerating earnings. More evidence of the improved corporate outlook is expected this week, with another 130 companies prepared to release quarterly results.
Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), with BioNTech SE (NASDAQ:BNTX) the maker of the first Covid-19 vaccine built on mRNA technology, reported earnings before the opening bell, and raised its guidance for the current year's earnings and revenue by some 15% to reflect both the eager takeup of its drug and an improvement in its non-vaccine business.
Numbers are also due from T-Mobile US (NASDAQ:TMUS), CVS Health (NYSE:CVS), Global Payments (NYSE:GPN), Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), Match Group (NASDAQ:MTCH) and Under Armour (NYSE:UA), among others.
Turning to economic data, the main release will be factory orders data for March at 10 AM ET (1400 GMT), published a day after the Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers survey reported an all-time high for its orders subindex, although its main index weakened from a 36-year high.
Oil prices were largely unchanged Tuesday, with investors digesting the ever increasing number of Covid-19 cases in India but also the continued economic recovery in regions such as Europe and the U.S.
Helping the tone, Saudi Arabian state oil producer Aramco (SE:2222) beat recorded a 30% rise in first-quarter net profit and maintained its dividend payout, helped by strong oil prices.
U.S. crude oil supply data from the American Petroleum Institute, due later in the session, will be studied with interest.
U.S. crude futures traded 1.9% higher at $65.68 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 1.9% to $68.86. Both contracts are over 30% higher so far this year.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.5% to $1,783.15/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.4% lower at 1.2014.