Investing.com - Wall Street stock futures pointed to a lower open on Friday in the last day of trade for the first quarter as investors looked ahead to a slew of data and more appearances from members of the Federal Reserve (Fed).
The blue-chip Dow futures lost 42 points, or 0.20%, by 6:51AM ET (10:51GMT), the S&P 500 futures fell 6 points, or 0.26%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures traded down 9 points, or 0.17%.
Despite the fact that futures pointing to U.S. stocks ending the first three months of the year on the downside and recent concern over President Donald Trump being unable to push health care reform through congress, equities were set to end the quarter with strong gains. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 were up around 5%, while the Nasdaq chalked up a 9% rise for the January to March period.
Personal income and spending, which includes the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation data, the Fed's preferred metric for inflation, will kick off the data dump stateside at 8:30AM ET (12:30GMT) on Friday.
At 9:45AM ET (13:45GMT), market players will receive a reading of manufacturing activity in March from the Chicago Fed, while the University of Michigan will release its revised reading on consumer sentiment for the same month at 10:00AM ET (14:00GMT).
In what has a been a busy week for remarks from Federal Reserve (Fed) officials, Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari and St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard are scheduled to make public appearances later on Friday.
The slew of hawkish remarks from several Fed members this week has pushed the odds for a rate hike in June back up above the 50% threshold, according to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool, though markets were still only pricing in the chance of the Fed’s call for two more hikes this year at about 48%.
Despite this recent uptick in rate expectations, the greenback has had a weak quarter, falling against all major currencies in the first three months of 2017 even though the Fed tightened policy at its last meeting in March.
Oil, for its part, has had a downbeat quarter with prices on track for losses of 7% as concerns about the OPEC production cut and a persistent global oversupply have put a damper on bullish sentiment.
For Friday’s session, market players looked ahead to weekly data from Baker Hughes on U.S. drilling activity that has been on the rise to take advantage of reduced supply from other major oil producers.
Data from the oilfield services provider last week revealed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by 21 in the prior week, the tenth weekly increase in a row. That brought the total count to 652, the most since September 2015.
U.S. crude futures fell 0.62% to $50.04 by 6:53AM ET (10:53GMT), while Brent oil lost 0.66% to $52.78.
Elsewhere, attention was centered on a cabinet reshuffle in South Africa. The rand sank as much as 2.6% against the dollar on Friday, before paring losses, as South African President Jacob Zuma fired Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and replaced him with Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba along with various other ministers and their deputies.
Speculation of the move this week has sent the South African currency reeling with the rand on track for a weekly loss of close to 7%.
Friday was also a busy day for global economic data as activity in China's manufacturing sector unexpectedly expanded at the fastest pace in nearly 5 years in March, adding to evidence that the world's second-largest economy has gained momentum early this year as construction booms.
Annual inflation in the euro zone tumbled to 1.5% in March, from the prior month’s reading of 2.0%, missing expectations for a reading of 1.8% and falling back below the European Central Bank’s (ECB) target of close to, but below, 2%.
The reduction in inflationary pressures in the single currency area should ease the pressure on the ECB to move forward with the removal of accommodative monetary policy.
In the region’s number one economy, Germany’s unemployment rate dropped to a post-reunification record low of 5.8%, beating expectations for it remain stable at 5.9%.
In the U.K., the British economy was confirmed to have grown 0.7% in the fourth quarter in the third GDP estimate for the October to December period, while house prices in Britain in March, their first monthly decline since June 2015.