Investing.com - Wall Street futures pointed to a lower open on Friday, as investors took a breather from election week gains and looked ahead to consumer sentiment data and an appearance by the number two at the Federal Reserve (Fed).
The blue-chip Dow futures fell 54 points, or 0.29%, by 6:59AM ET (11:59GMT), the S&P 500 futures traded down 11 points, or 0.48%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures lost 45 points, or 0.94%.
Markets were continuing to speculate on the possible implementation of future policies of the newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump and how that would affect their investments.
Trade was expected to be thin on Friday due to the Veterans’ Day holiday, while some investors took profits as the Dow was on track for its biggest weekly gain in the last five years and the S&P expected to pocket its largest 5-day rise since October 2014.
After a slump in tech shares caused by concern over past promises by Trump to bring American factories home and implement protectionist policies, the Nasdaq looked set to continue under pressure on Friday.
Furthermore, the global bond market has lost more than $1 trillion this week on speculation that new policies from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will boost spending and accelerate inflation. The U.S. bond market will remain closed Friday in observance of the holiday.
As markets weighed expectations for the U.S. central bank to return to policy normalization, Fed fund futures put the odds of a rate hike at the December meeting at 76.3%, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
That was ahead of a speech from Fed vice chair Stanley Fischer who was scheduled to speak on U.S. monetary policy and the global economy at 8:30AM ET (13:30GMT).
Despite the holiday, market players will also digest the University of Michigan’s preliminary read on consumer sentiment for November at 10:00AM ET (15:00GMT).
In the meantime, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, showed choppy trade on Friday, hovering around the unchanged mark. It was last up 0.02% to 98.81 by 7:00AM ET (12:00GMT).
On the earnings front, shares in Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) were up 1% in pre-market trade on Friday after the blue-chip entertainment giant promised earnings growth over the next two years.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) soared nearly 13% after registering its largest growth in revenue in more than 6 years and handily beating estimates. Amid the general downturn in tech shares, the good news pushed AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) 3% higher.
JC Penney Company Inc Holding (NYSE:JCP) and Brookfield Asset Management Inc (NYSE:BAM) were among other firms scheduled to report earnings before the opening bell on Friday.
Outside of earnings, Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE:BABA) surged past last year’s record 91.2 billion yuan ($13.36 billion) in online sales on “Single’s Day” with nearly seven hours left in the annual event which encourages individuals with no significant other to purchase something for themselves. However, shares in the Chinese e-commerce giant were down 1% in pre-market trade on Friday.
Meanwhile, oil prices dropped on Friday, as ongoing concerns over a global supply glut continued to weigh on the commodity amid growing doubts OPEC will manage to limit production on a day when its own monthly report showed the cartel increasing output.
U.S. crude oil futures fell 1.43% to $44.02 at by 7:02AM ET (12:02GMT), while Brent oil traded down 1.31% to $45.21.