(Reuters) -Wall Street’s main indexes were set to rise at the opening bell on Tuesday, buoyed by gains in technology-related mega caps as inflation worries ebbed and U.S. bond yields eased for the fourth straight day.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq kicked off the week about 1% higher after Federal Reserve officials maintained that ultra-easy monetary policy will remain, allaying worries higher prices may force the central bank to scale back its support.
“Since we bottomed out sometime last week, the market each day is gaining some stability and we see downside risk floating away. The mood is bullish but it’s quite modest,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) in Austin, Texas.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc added between 0.4% and 1% in premarket trading as the yield on 10-year bond slipped to a fresh two-week low on Tuesday.
Higher yields pressure valuations for tech and other growth stocks, whose future cash flows are discounted at higher rates.
Later in the day, data is likely to show U.S. consumer confidence slipped in May from a 14-month high hit in the prior month.
With the S&P 500 within 1% of its May 7 all-time high, focus will be on the U.S. personal consumption (PCE) report on Thursday, the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, following a recent bout of market volatility triggered by fears of a longer period of higher prices.
“The key PCE data due later in the week is key to get a better judgment on inflation and we would expect the market to be a slightly directionless until that data is out,” Frederick added.
At 8:14 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 85 points, or 0.25%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 13.75 points, or 0.33%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 75.25 points, or 0.55%.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) rose 1.2% after aircraft leasing business SMBC Aviation Capital agreed to buy an additional 14 Boeing 737 MAX jets.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) Corp rose 1.2%, adding to gains of more than 11% in the past four sessions, as it heads into first-quarter earnings on Wednesday.
Lordstown Motors Corp slumped 12.7% after the electric vehicle startup said that 2021 production of its Endurance truck would be half of prior expectations and it needs additional capital to execute its plans.
Source: Reuters