By Oliver Gray
Investing.com - Dow futures were trading slightly lower during Sunday’s evening deals, after major benchmark indices finished this week significantly higher and finishing July with the largest gains since April 2020, with market participants looking ahead to a continued deluge of earnings results and key NFP data.
By 6:55pm ET (10:55pm GMT) Dow Jones Futures, S&P 500 Futures and Nasdaq 100 Futures were all trading 0.4% lower.
Investors will be closely monitoring July’s Nonfarm Payrolls print, with analysts estimating a slowdown in hiring, forecasting the addition of 250K jobs which would be the lowest since December of 2020, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 3.6%.
Other important economic data include final S&P Global PMIs, ISM Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing PMIs, exports, imports, JOLTS job openings, construction spending and factory orders.
Meanwhile, the earnings season continues with a slew of major companies reporting quarterly results, including Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY), Gilead Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:GILD), Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE:UBER), Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:CAT) and Amgen Inc (NASDAQ:AMGN).
During Friday’s trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 315 points or 1% to 32,845.1, the S&P 500 added 57.9 points or 1.4% to 4,130.3 and the NASDAQ Composite gained 228.1 points or 1.9% to 12,390.7. For the month, the Dow gained 6.7%, the S&P 500 added 9.1% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 12.4%.
On the bond markets, United States 10-Year rates were near fresh 3-month lows of 2.654%.