(Bloomberg) — US equity futures slipped on Friday as some bad news on earnings tempered the euphoria around the trajectory for interest rates.
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Contracts on the S&P 500 retreated 0.3%, with the underlying benchmark fresh off its 39th record high of 2024. FedEx Corp. plunged 14% in premarket as the economic bellwether missed profit estimates and cautioned that its business would slow. Nike Inc. rallied as the company announced a change in chief executive officer.
Europe’s Stoxx 600 index fell as Mercedes-Benz Group AG slumped as much as 8.4% after cutting its financial forecast because of sluggish China sales. Treasury yields rose, while an index of dollar strength climbed. Gold hit another all-time high.
The Federal Reserve’s bold half-point rate cut this week boosted confidence that it will be able to engineer a soft landing, but warnings such as the one from FedEx underscore lingering risks to the economy. Fed policymakers have projected a further half point of reductions this year.
“For all the optimism in markets right now, it’s clear that a few concerns still lie under the surface,” said Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank AG. “In particular, futures are continuing to price in a more aggressive pace of cuts than was implied by the Fed’s dot plot on Wednesday, so investors think they might need to accelerate those rate cuts if downside risks materialize.”
Traders are also braced for the quarterly “triple witching,” when derivatives contracts tied to stocks, index options and futures mature — potentially amplifying market moves. About $5.1 trillion are set to expire Friday, according to an estimate from derivatives analytical firm Asym 500.
The options expiry coincides with the rebalancing of benchmark indexes. The event has a reputation for causing sudden price moves as contracts disappear and traders roll over their existing positions or start new ones.
The Bank of Japan was in focus as it kept policy unchanged, with the yen sliding 1.2% as Governor Kazuo Ueda proved less hawkish than some traders expected. Ueda signaled little urgency to hike rates, and said that upside risks to inflation are easing.
For Bank of America Corp.’s Michael Hartnett, the optimism in equity markets following the Fed’s move is stoking the risk of a bubble, making bonds and gold an attractive hedge against any recession or renewed inflation.
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The strategist said stocks are now pricing in more Fed easing and about 18% earnings growth for the S&P 500 by end-2025. It doesn’t “get much better than that for risk, so investors are forced to chase” the rally, Hartnett wrote in a note.
He also said stocks outside the US and commodities were a good way to play a possible soft economic landing, with the latter being an inflation hedge. International equities are cheaper and starting to outperform US peers, according to Hartnett.
Key events this week:
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Eurozone consumer confidence, Friday
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Canada retail sales, Friday
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
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S&P 500 futures fell 0.3% as of 7:56 a.m. New York time
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Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.4%
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Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were little changed
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The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.7%
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The MSCI World Index was little changed
Currencies
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The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.2%
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The euro was little changed at $1.1161
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The British pound was little changed at $1.3297
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The Japanese yen fell 1.1% to 144.27 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
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Bitcoin rose 0.6% to $63,421.12
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Ether rose 3.2% to $2,545.3
Bonds
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The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced two basis points to 3.74%
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Germany’s 10-year yield advanced one basis point to 2.21%
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Britain’s 10-year yield was little changed at 3.90%
Commodities
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West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.3% to $71.75 a barrel
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Spot gold rose 1.1% to $2,613.98 an ounce
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Sagarika Jaisinghani and Divya Patil.
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