The U.S stock futures went up early Monday as investors approached the final stretch of earnings season and braced for a busy week of inflation data.
After the benchmark equity index logged three straight weeks of gains, the futures tied to the S&P 500 went up 0.5%, despite modest losses on Friday. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 140 points, or 0.4%, and Nasdaq futures gained 0.6%.
After a blowout employment report showed the U.S. economy added twice as many jobs in July as expected, stock prices ended up mixed on Friday. The Labor Department reported non-farm payrolls rose by 528,000 last month, which has renewed concerns that the Federal ReserveFederal Reserve may proceed with aggressive interest rate hikes to slow demand and drive down inflation.
In a note Friday by Michael Gapen, economists at the Bank of America said that it likely signals a reduced risk of a near-term recession, but in our view increases the risk of a hard landing over time, given that strong data means the Fed has more work to do.
The bank also revised its projections for rate increases by an additional 25 basis points, calling for 50 basis point bumps in September and November and 25 basis points in December.
The three big inflation readings this week are the Consumer Price Index CPI, the Producer Price Index PPI and unit labor costs, a measure of all wages paid to employees.
The closely watched CPI index for July due out Wednesday is expected to show a slight moderation from last month's reading, mainly due to lower gas prices. Inflation is expected to climb at the highest pace in four decades, according to the figure.
In July, the broadest measure of CPI rose by 8.7%, a number that would be a little cool down from 9.1% in June, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The CPI is expected to have an increase of 0.2% over the month, up from 1.3% last month.
The earnings season is winding down with about 87% of the companies in the S&P 500 reporting actual results for the second quarter. More big reports are set to be released this week, with earnings from Disney, DIS Coinbase COIN Tyson Foods TSN and Rivian Automotive RIVN on tap.