Market Snapshot: U.S. stock futures hold ground ahead of bank earnings

What’s happening

• Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average
  YM00,
  +0.15%
  were up 67 points, or 0.2%, at 34,549.

• S&P 500 futures
  ES00,
  -0.04%
  were down 1.5 points, or less than 0.1%, at 4,440.75.

• Nasdaq-100 futures
  NQ00,
  -0.01%
  were up 0.75 point at 14,222.25.

Stocks ended on a strong note Wednesday, with the S&P 500
SPX,
+1.12%
and Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+2.03%
snapping three-day losing streaks, while the Dow
DJIA,
+1.01%
advanced 344.23 points, or 1%. Indexes were on track for a losing week, however. U.S. equity markets will be closed on Good Friday.

What’s driving the market

Technology shares helped lead a bounce for stocks on Wednesday, as Treasury yields continued to pull back from three-year highs on speculation inflation may have peaked after data on Tuesday showed the consumer price index rose at its hottest pace since 1981 in March. The report showed core inflation — excluding food and energy — came in softer than expected in March, prompting some economists and investors to discuss an inflation peak.

Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller told CNBC Wednesday afternoon that inflation likely had peaked but that the central bank needed to press ahead with aggressive rate increases and monetary tightening to get it under control. Waller said he continued to support a 50 basis point rate hike in May and “possibly more in June and July,”

Read: This stock-market indicator says investors don’t think inflation has peaked: analyst

Treasury yields were nudging back to the upside early Thursday, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
2.691%
up 1.5 basis points at 2.703%. Yields and debt prices move opposite each other.

“To be honest, with hopes over an imminent resolution in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine diminishing, and with most major central banks hiking — or preparing to hike — more aggressively than previously thought, we don’t see a clear and valid catalyst behind the rebound in equities,” said Charalambos Pissouros, head of research at JFD Group, in a note.

“Perhaps it was a short-covering bounce. We will hold the view that the path of least resistance remains to the downside,” the analyst wrote.

Investors will be sifting through results from the financial sector, with Citigroup Inc.
C,
-0.38%,
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
GS,
+0.68%
Morgan Stanley
MS,
+0.24%
and Wells Fargo & Co.
WFC,
+0.25%
all due to release first-quarter numbers.

Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPM,
-3.22%
fell more than 3% on Wednesday after disappointing results.

The U.S. economics calendar includes weekly jobless claims, retail sales, and shortly after the open, the University of Michigan’s consumer-sentiment index.

What companies are in focus

• Twitter shares rose 12% after Musk disclosed he was offering to buy all Twitter stock outstanding he doesn’t own for $54.20 a share, an 18.2% premium to Wednesday’s closing price of $45.85. 

What other assets are doing

• The ICE U.S. Dollar Index
  DXY,
  -0.20%,
  a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, was down 0.2%.

• Bitcoin
  BTCUSD,
  -0.62%
  was up 0.2% to trade just below $42,000.

• Oil futures pulled back, with the U.S. benchmark
  CL.1,
  -1.12%
  down 1.4% below $103 a barrel, while gold futures
  GC00,
  -0.46%
  fell -.7% to trade below $1,972 an ounce.

• The Stoxx Europe 600
  SXXP,
  +0.22%
  rose 0.2%, while London’s FTSE 100
  UKX,
  -0.04%
  rose 0.1%.

• The Shanghai Composite
  SHCOMP,
  +1.22%
  rose 1.2%, while the Hang Seng Index
  HSI,
  +0.67%
  was up 0.7% in Hong Kong and Japan’s Nikkei 225
  NIK,
  +1.22%
  gained 1.2%.