Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a higher open on Monday, suggesting the Dow could close at another record high as it looked to wrap up July with monthly gains of more than 2% and investors continued to concentrate on earnings news and watch developments with North Korea.
The blue-chip Dow futures gained 48 points, or 0.22%, at 7:20AM ET (11:20GMT), the S&P 500 futures rose 3 points, or 0.12%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures traded up 15 points, or 0.25%.
Although last week was the busiest of the second quarter reporting season with 189 S&P firms releasing numbers, the flow will continue this week with reports from big names such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) or Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) as another 133 companies on the global stock benchmark continue to pump out figures in the next five days.
With slightly more than half of S&P 500 components having reported, 73% are turning in better-than-expected earnings and sales with companies reporting earnings that are 6.4% above consensus and topping sales estimates by 1.2%, according to FactSet analyst John Butters.
Apart from earnings, market players will keep an eye on geopolitical developments after North Korea claimed that the entire continental U.S. is within range of its intercontinental ballistic missiles and U.S. President Donald Trump once again expressed frustration with China’s lack of action.
On Monday’s economic calendar, investors will digest the Chicago purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for July and June pending home sales.
That while traders wait for the big economic appointment at the end of the week with the publication of the monthly employment report.
Meanwhile, oil prices turned lower in early morning North American trading, pulling back off two-month highs.
Earlier the barrel of West Texas had managed to push past the $50-level for the first time in two months, but black gold couldn’t hold the psychological level as concerns over OPEC’s compliance with production cuts continued to weigh.
A Reuters poll showed that oil analysts have cut their 2017 crude price forecasts for a sixth straight month in July, citing concerns over the global supply glut.
U.S. crude futures fell 0.26% to $49.58 by 7:33AM ET (11:33GMT), while Brent oil lost 0.19% to $52.12.
Elsewhere, data showed that a government-led infrastructure push kept construction in China humming in July, despite a modest slowdown in the country's manufacturing sector.
The official PMI stood at 51.4 in July, the National Bureau of Statistics said, down from the previous month's 51.7 and a touch below the 51.6 forecast.
However, the PMI reading on the construction sector showed a solid pickup to 62.5 in July from 61.4 in June.