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U.S. equity futures moved higher in early Thursday trading as investors looked to kick-off the new year by snapping a four-day losing streak powered once again by megacap tech stocks and steady Treasury bond yields.Â
Stocks closed out an otherwise exceptional year on a down note Tuesday, with the S&P 500 slipping 25 points to trim its fourth quarter gain to around 2.1%. That still left the benchmark more than 23% higher for the year and marked the strongest set of back-to-back gains for domestic stocks since 1998.
Market focus will quickly shift now to the start of the fourth quarter earnings season later this month, as well as December jobs data next week that will being to fill in the holes of the Federal Reserve’s now-cautious outlook on interest rates.Â
A notable portion of that caution, of course, is tied to the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn into office on Jan. 20.
“Our four keys to a strong stock market in 2025 include economic growth (no recession), an accommodative Fed, strong profits from corporate America, and fiscal and regulatory policy from the Trump administration that helps more than it hurts,” said Jeffrey Buchbinder, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial.
“We expect stocks to move modestly higher next year while acknowledging reasonable upside and downside scenarios,” he added.
In the meantime, investors are likely to track any moves in the Treasury market, which saw benchmark 10-year note yields ease to 4.533% heading into the close of the year after topping 4.6% in late December.Â
Related: Gangbuster S&P 500 returns depend on one crucial thing in 2025
Benchmark 2-year notes, meanwhile, were last marked at 4.215% heading into the start of the New York trading session while the dollar index was pegged just shy of a two year peak against its global peers at 108.462.
On Wall Street, stock futures suggest a solid start to the year, despite overnight weakness in Europe and Asia, with futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 indicating a 43 point opening bell gain.
Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which posted a fourth quarter gain of just 0.5%, are priced for a 244 point boost while the Nasdaq is expected to open 190 points higher after its 2024 advance of 28.6%.
Stocks in focus include Tesla (TSLA) , which will publish its fourth quarter delivery figures prior to the start of trading and following the explosion of a Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas that killed the driver and injured several bystanders.
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In Europe, the regional Stoxx 600 benchmark edged 0.2% lower in Frankfurt to start the year, while Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.03% higher in London thanks in part to solid gain for crude and commodities stocks.
Overnight in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.96% in Tokyo, while the region-wide MSCI ex-Japan benchmark slipped 0.44% into the close of trading.
Related: Veteran fund manager issues dire S&P 500 warning for 2025
