S&P, Dow futures edge higher on stimulus, rebound hopes

By Pawel Goraj

(Reuters) – Futures tracking the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones indexes edged higher on Monday following a selloff on Wall Street last week as investors weighed hopes of more stimulus and improving data against a resurgence in global coronavirus cases.

Wall Street’s major indexes had tumbled more than 2% on Friday as several U.S. states imposed business restrictions in response to the surge in COVID-19 cases. Stocks in Asia and Europe were muted overnight as the global death toll from the respiratory illness crossed half a million on Sunday. [MKTS/GLOB]

The benchmark S&P 500 <.SPX> has rallied since a coronavirus-driven crash in March, up about 16% since April and set for its best quarter since 1998, partly on a raft of U.S. fiscal and monetary stimulus.

This week, investors will focus on employment, consumer confidence and manufacturing data for June for signs of whether the U.S. economy will continue to rebound after indications of a pickup in May.

At 6:44 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis <1YMcv1> were up 54 points, or 0.22%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 1.75 points, or 0.06% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 30 points, or 0.3%.

Among stocks, Boeing Co rose 3.2% in premarket trade after the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed on Sunday it had approved key certification test flights for the grounded 737 MAX that could begin as soon Monday.

Facebook Inc looked set to extend declines from Friday as a report said PepsiCo Inc was set to join a growing number of companies pulling ad dollars from the social media platform.

(Reporting by Pawel Goraj in Gdansk; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)