Investing.com - Wall Street futures pointed to a higher open on Thursday, with the Dow up triple-digits, as hopes continued that policies from President-elect Donald Trump could unleash a flood of infrastructure spending and lower taxes that would boost economic growth.
The blue-chip Dow futures jumped 125 points, or 0.67%, by 6:52AM ET (11:52GMT), the S&P 500 futures traded up 13 points, or 0.61%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures gained 40 points, or 0.83%.
Outside of stocks, copper also surged on expectations for infrastructure spending, hitting its highest level since July 2015.
Experts also speculated that Trump’s policies would lead to higher inflation, possibly paving the way for the Federal Reserve (Fed) to tighten monetary policy.
Markets were pricing in the odds of a rate hike at the December meeting at 76.3%, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
San Francisco Fed president John Williams said that Trump’s victory hadn’t changed his approach to monetary policy, insisting that “it’s really driven by the data.”
Williams reiterated that he supported the argument for a gradual rate of increases as the Fed seeks to remove accommodative monetary policy over the next few years.
St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard was scheduled to speak at 9:15AM ET (14:15GMT).
Also of note, a Trump economic adviser confirmed late Wednesday that the newly elected president was not seeking Fed chair Janet Yellen’s resignation despite recent attacks on her character, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The source did say that Trump was unlikely to nominate Yellen for a second term when her current one expires on February 3, 2018 because he would prefer to choose someone more aligned with his thinking.
Additionally, investors also looked ahead to weekly jobless claims and the Federal budget balance for October.
In the meantime, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, gained 0.19% to 98.85 by 6:54AM ET (10:54AM GMT).
On the company front, investors would be on the watch for earnings reports from the likes of Macy’s (NYSE:M), Kohl’s (NYSE:KSS) or Ralph Lauren (NYSE:RL) before the opening bell, while Disney (NYSE:DIS) and Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) are among companies publishing after the close.
Meanwhile, U.S. crude turned lower and the London barrel pared gains after the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that the market risks running another surplus in 2017 without an output cut from OPEC.
In its monthly oil market report, the IEA said global supply rose by 800,000 barrels per day in October to 97.8 million bpd, led by record OPEC output and rising production from non-OPEC members such as Russia, Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan.
OPEC reached an agreement to cap output to a range of 32.5 million to 33.0 million barrels per day in talks held in Algeria in late September. However, the 14-member oil group said it won’t finalize details on individual output quotas until its next official meeting in Vienna on November 30.
“If no agreement is reached and some individual members continue to expand their production then the market will remain in surplus throughout the year, with little prospect of oil prices rising significantly higher,” the IEA warned in the report.
U.S. crude oil futures fell 0.46% to $45.06 at by 6:55AM ET (11:55GMT), while Brent oil gained 0.35% to $46.52.