Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a higher open on Friday as stocks looked set to recover from the prior session’s plunge in tech stocks with Nike’s better-than-expected earnings buoying stocks and investors looking ahead to economic data out later in the day.
The blue-chip Dow futures gained 49 points, or 0.23%, at 7:02AM ET (11:02GMT), the S&P 500 futures rose 6 points, or 0.25%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures traded up 23 points, or 0.41%.
Nike (NYSE:NKE) jumped more than 6% in pre-market trade Friday as the world’s largest footwear maker handily beat consensus on both the top and bottom line after releasing earnings following the prior session’s close.
The shoe maker also announced that it would launch a pilot program with Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) to sell a limited product assortment on its website with analysts projecting that the partnership could raise the firm’s revenue by $300 to $500 million if it turned into a more meaningful relationship.
Investors will gauge U.S. data later in the session including the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) favorite inflation gauge, the core PCE price index, along with personal income & spending for May at 8:30AM ET (12:30GMT).
At 9:45AM ET (13:45GMT), the Chicago purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for June will be released, followed 15 minutes later by the University of Michigan’s revision to its consumer sentiment index for the same month.
The inflation measure in particular will be watched as the Fed announced Thursday that its semiannual monetary policy report will be released on July 7, five days before Fed chair Janet Yellen testifies to Congress.
Markets remained skeptical that the U.S. central bank would follow through on its forecast to hike rates once more this year, placing the odds of a December increase at around 45%, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
The dollar was on course for its worst quarter in seven years on Friday, recovering only marginally in early morning trade against major peers after a week of central bank remarks on inflation shook major currency markets, causing investors to increase expectations for policy tightening in both Europe and the U.K.
The greenback gained around 0.3% against the euro on Friday, but was still down almost 9% on the quarter and off 2% this week alone.
While waiting for Friday’s data, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, advanced 0.16% at 95.47 by 7:04AM ET (11:04GMT).
Meanwhile, oil prices moved higher on Friday, putting crude on track for its biggest weekly gain since May as it broke a losing streak of five consecutive weeks.
Data indicating a fall in U.S. production bolstered markets this week after crude prices hit a 10-month low last week in the face of a mounting supply glut.
Eyes will remain on U.S. shale production later in the session with Baker Hughes’ weekly rig count data.
U.S. drillers last week added rigs for the 23rd week in a row, according to data from the energy services company, the longest such streak on record.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.82% to $45.30 by 7:04AM ET (11:04GMT), while Brent oil traded up 0.76% to $47.99.