Stock futures traded after closing slightly higher on the first day of the regular trading with investors' optimism over returning corporate earnings helping counterbalance ongoing concerns over the coronavirus.
Contracts on Dow Jones ticked down. Earlier, the 30 Stock Index closed higher for the first time in three sessions and came within striking distance of an all-time high. The NSE 500 Index and Nasdaq added also.
Shares of ride company Lyft gained in late trading after the company unexpectedly delivered adjusted EBITDA profitability for the first time since going public in 2019 with a pick up on ridership during the reopening helping to fuel results. Oil and gas company Occidental Petroleum also gained after-hours, with the company also posting a surprise adjusted profit as Energy Demand rebounded.
Estimates-topping results from these and a myriad of other major U.S. companies have helped buoy stocks even as jitters around the spread of the Delta variant and concerns in China about a regulatory crackdown lingered. However, the Treasury markets have reflected some of these concerns, with the benchmark 10-year yield below 1.2% and holding at the lowest levels since mid-July.
Certainly when it comes to the Delta variant, this has been a driver of rates moving lower. And certainly what are issues around China have also been a headwind. We do think those are largely driven outside of the U.S. so when it comes to domestic factors, domestic growth actually looks fairly solid, told Stephanie Roth, JPMorgan private bank senior markets economist, Yahoo Finance. We expect over the long term domestic factors should win out and rates should move higher.
In terms of equities, Roth suggested: cyclicals should do fairly well, so we're bar-belling cyclicals and tech here, and we think rates should certainly trend higher in the next 12 months, Tactically added.
More clues on the economic growth trajectory for the U.S. will emerge in the coming days, with a slew of reports on the labor market due over the course of the rest of the week. ADP's monthly employment report is expected to show private payrolls grew by a modest 683,000 in July, decelerating only slightly from June's gain of 692,000. And on Friday, Labor Department's official July jobs report is expected to reflect a slight acceleration in payroll gains, with a pick-up in hiring and the return of more workers to the labor market helping to alleviate some of the labor scarcity rampant across industries.