NEW YORK, Dec 19 —Wall Street's main stock indexes were set to open slightly higher today after two straight weeks of losses on recession worries, while Tesla shares rose after a poll showed Elon Musk should quit as Twitter's CEO.
Shares of the electric-car maker gained 2.5 per cent in premarket trading after the poll showed about 57.5 per cent of the 17.5 million people voted in favor of him stepping down from Twitter.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq lost over 2 per cent each last week after Fed Chair Jerome Powell signalled more policy tightening, and the central bank projected that interest rates would top the 5 per cent mark in 2023, a level not seen since 2007.
"There's still a cloud over the markets (from last week). But this is one day where the investors are not thinking so much about the bad or thinking so much about a recession," said Dennis Dick, market structure analyst and trader, Triple D Trading.
"They're thinking, 'hey, here's one of the stocks that has dropped almost 50 per cent since he (Musk) took over Twitter and so here's the relief rally that we've been looking for'."
Comments from New York Fed President John Williams further bruised sentiment on Friday as he said it remains possible the U.S. central bank will raise rates more than it expects next year.
However, money market participants still place a 73.5 per cent chance of a 25 basis points rate hike in February to 4.5 per cent-4.75 per cent, with a terminal rate of 4.84 per cent in May 2023.
Economic data this week including housing starts, consumer confidence, weekly jobless claims and core personal consumption spending growth for November will set the investor mood, providing more clues on future rate hikes by the central bank.
At 8:32 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 14 points, or 0.04 per cent, S&P 500 e-minis were up 4.5 points, or 0.12 per cent, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 23 points, or 0.2 per cent.
Moderna Inc advanced 2.7 per cent after Jefferies upgraded the biotechnology firm's stock to "buy" from "hold", citing cancer therapy opportunities.
L3Harris Technologies Inc lost 1.1 per cent after the U.S. defence contractor said it would buy the hypersonic engine manufacturer, Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc, for US$4.7 billion (RM20.8 billion). Aerojet added 1.7 per cent. — Reuters
