Dow Jones Today: Stock Futures Little Changed as S&P 500, Nasdaq Look to Extend Winning Streaks

Major indexes were moving higher Thursday morning as the stock market looks to continue its recovery from last week’s selloff.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were up 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1%. The major indexes closed higher on Wednesday, recovering from losses earlier in the session, led by gains for chip makers and other big-name technology stocks.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are riding three-session winning streaks and have recovered a big chunk of the losses that were recorded last week amid concerns about the health of the economy and volatility in technology stocks. The major indexes are on track to post weekly gains, after suffering their worst week in more than a year last week.

Nvidia (NVDA), which soared 8% yesterday after CEO Jensen Huang made positive comments about demand for the AI chipmaker’s products, was up about 2% Thursday morning. Shares of other big tech companies were mixed, with Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN) down slightly, while Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META) gained ground.

Among big movers, shares of Kroger (KR) were up more than 6% after the grocery store chain reported earnings, while shares of Moderna (MRNA) tumbled 17% after the pharmaceutical company said it plans to trim its research and development pipeline to cut costs.

On the economic data front, weekly jobless claims and monthly wholesale price inflation numbers were mostly in line with economists’ expectations, though the ‘core’ number in the inflation report was a bit higher than anticipated. Data releases have had a big impact on market sentiment in recent weeks as market participants look for clues about the health of the economy and an indication of how aggressive the Federal Reserve might be when it starts cutting interest rates for the first time in four years.

Thursday’s economic releases are among the last pieces of data coming before next week’s meeting of the Fed’s policy committee. Fed officials have signaled that they are poised to start reducing the influential fed funds rate, but they’ve stressed that data will drive the decisions on the pace and depth of the easing.

Market participants are now pricing in about a 15% chance that the Fed will cut the benchmark rate by half a percentage point next week, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading data. That’s little changed from Wednesday but well below the 50% probability that was priced in last Friday following a weaker-than-expected jobs report for August.

The yield on 10-year Treasurys, which is sensitive to expectations around interest rates, rose to 3.69% from 3.65% late yesterday. The yield had fallen to its lowest level in more than a year, around 3.60%, early Wednesday after the release of the monthly consumer price report.

Gold futures rose more than 1% to $2,580 an ounce, trading near its record high, while WTI crude oil futures rose more than 3%, continuing a recovery from losses earlier in the week. Bitcoin was up slightly to near $58,000.