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U.S. equity futures moved higher again in early Thursday trading, powered by gains for some megacap tech stocks, as investors looked to extend the market’s recent record highs heading into the final stretch of an impressive second quarter.
Stocks ended the pre-holiday break with another set of fresh record highs on Tuesday, with Nvidia (NVDA) eclipsing Microsoft (MSFT) as the world’s most-valuable company and helping power the Nasdaq to an all-time peak of 17,862.23 points.
The S&P 500, which has gained more than 15% so far this year, is also trading at the highest levels in history and could top the 5,500 point mark in early Thursday trading.
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Investors are still concerned, however, that megacap tech names are driving the bulk of both this year’s gains and the market’s late-spring rebound, with Nvidia alone responsible for around a third of the overall advance since the April lows.
“The lack of confirmation in breadth and momentum does not mean the bull market is over, but it does imply stocks could be due for a pause or pullback unless this rally begins to broaden out,” said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial.
“Concentrated leadership at important breakout points followed by a broader rotation has been the playbook of this “Field of Dreams” bull market, where mega-caps build the breakout, and other stocks follow,” he added.
Investors will keep a close eye on the Bank of England’s June rate decision in London following softer-than-expected May inflation data.
Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
Early Thursday direction, however, is likely to come from the Labor Department’s weekly jobless claims data at 8:30 am Eastern time, as well as housing starts data for the month of May.
Investors will also be watching for a key Bank of England rate decision in London prior to the start of trading following inflation data that hit the central bank’s target for the first time in three years.
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Heading into the start of the trading day on Wall Street, futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 suggest an opening bell gain of around 26 points, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average called around 55 points higher.
The tech-focused Nasdaq, meanwhile, could test the 18,000 point mark with an opening bell gain of 130 points.
Nvidia shares were marked 2.6% higher in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $139.12 each, a fresh all-time high that would lift its value to around $3.43 trillion.
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In overseas markets, London’s FTSE 100 was marked 0.17% higher heading into the Bank of England rate decision at noon local time, with the region-wide MSCI ex-Japan benchmark rising 0.53% in Frankfurt.
Overnight in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei ended 0.16% higher in Tokyo while the regional MSCI ex-Japan benchmark slipped 0.66% into the close of trading.
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