Dow futures steady ahead of busy data week as investors look for fresh catalysts

U.S. stock futures pointed to a mostly flat start for Wall Street on Monday, as investors braced for a busy week of data, and looked for more catalysts to take the market higher following a boost from Nvidia last week.

How are stock-index futures trading

S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.04%
rose 4 points, or 0.1%, to 5,105.50.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
+0.01%
were up 15 points, or less than 0.1%, at 39,204.
Nasdaq-100 futures
NQ00,
+0.11%
gained 27 points, or 0.1%, to trade at 18,018.

The Dow
DJIA
last week rose 1.3%, notching its 14th record close of 2024 on Friday, while the S&P 500
SPX
posted a weekly advance of 1.7% and its 13th record finish of the year. The Nasdaq Composite
COMP
rose 1.4% for the week, after briefly trading above its record close from Nov. 19, 2021, on Thursday and Friday.

What’s driving markets

Thursday’s big surge for markets fueled by blowout results from Nvidia
NVDA,
+0.36%,
gave way to a more tepid session on Friday.

“This likely suggests that as the earnings season winds down, market participants are slowly turning their attention back to monetary policy and anything corroborating the view that Fed officials are not in a rush to start cutting interest rates anytime soon could result in a corrective retreat,” Charalampos Pissouros, senior investment analyst at XM, said in a comment to clients.

The week will bring several important data points, including the first revision to fourth-quarter gross domestic product on Wednesday and the Federal Reserve’s favored inflation metric, the core reading of the personal-consumption expenditures index, on Thursday.

See: Should stock-market investors care more about Nvidia or the Fed? Inflation data will provide a test.

“Our economists believe the MoM (month-on-month) core print will be at 0.36% vs. 0.17% last time. This would make it the highest since last January. The fact that last January was 0.51% means that rolling out base effects should help the YoY rate edge down a tenth to 2.8%. However it’s the monthly print that will be all important,” said a team of strategists at Deutsche Bank led by Jim Reid.

Monday will see the release of new home sales for January, due at 10 a.m. Appearances by several Fed speakers will be sprinkled throughout the week as well.

Companies in focus

Shares of Domino’s Pizza Inc.
DPZ,
+1.32%
jumped more than 7% in premarket trade after the pizza chain topped profit expectations for its latest quarter, boosted by strength in both delivery and carryout sales.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
BRK.A,
+0.55%

BRKB,
+0.72%
on Saturday reported operating earnings after taxes rose 28% to $85 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023 on strength in its large insurance business and higher investment income. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Berkshire’s chairman and CEO, also released his annual investor letter.