Major US Stock Futures Slide, Small-Caps Buck Trend: Market Strategist Flags This As The 'Stronger Times Of The Year For Stocks'

U.S. stock futures declined in premarket hours as traders digested new appointments for the key cabinet positions by President-elect Donald Trump. Hoards of data are expected to be released today which could give a clearer picture of where interest rates are headed.

Futures for the three major U.S. indices dropped and U.S. Dollar Index fell near the 106.5 level. However, the broader small-cap index Russell 200 futures were trading higher during the premarket. The two-year and 10-year U.S. Treasuries slipped to 4.21% and 4.26% respectively as the expectations of a further 25 basis point rate cut in December rose to just 66.3% now, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

Futures	Performance (+/-)
Nasdaq 100	-0.34%
S&P 500	-0.16%
Dow Jones	-0.06%
R2K	0.59%

In premarket trading on Wednesday, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY was down 0.09% to $600.07 and the Invesco QQQ ETF QQQ fell 0.27% to $507.96, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Cues From The Last Session

The Dow Jones closed higher by around 124 points to 44,860.31 on Tuesday. The S&P 500 rose 0.57% to 6,021.63, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.63% to close at 19,175.58 during Tuesday’s session. Both, Dow Jones and S&P 500 surged to fresh record levels during the session.

Most sectors on the S&P 500 closed on a positive note, with utilities, communication services, and consumer discretionary stocks recording the biggest gains on Tuesday. However, energy and materials stocks bucked the overall market trend, closing the session lower.

On the economic data front, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index rose 4.6% year-over-year in September versus a 5.2% increase in August. Sales of new single-family homes in the U.S. dipped by 17.3% to an annualized rate of 610,000 in October.

Index	Performance (+/-)	Value
Nasdaq Composite	0.63%	19,175.58
S&P 500	0.57%	6,021.63
Dow Jones	0.28%	44,860.31
Russell 2000	-0.73%	2,424.31

Also read: Dow, S&P 500 Settle At Record Highs, Best Buy Reports Weaker Than Expected Earnings: Fear Index Remains In ‘Greed’ Zone

Insights From Analysts
Comparing the average performance per day of the S&P 500 Index from 1950 to 2023, Ryan Detrick, CMT and chief market strategist at Carson Group LLC said in an X (formerly Twitter) post that “now is one of the stronger times of the year for stocks.”

The chart shared by him showed that the average returns on the index from the dates Nov. 23 to Nov. 30 have been consecutively positive over the last 73 years.

Now is one of the stronger times of the year for stocks. pic.twitter.com/Hh4kA7xx6V
— Ryan Detrick, CMT (@RyanDetrick) November 26, 2024

Speaking about Tuesday’s cross-asset volatility, Mark Newton, CMT, Managing Director and global head of technical strategy at Fundstrat Global Advisors LLC said that the markets “got the long-awaited 10-year Treasury and U.S. Dollar rollover while Crude and Precious metals all fell more than 3% today.”

He added that “despite a +0.91% equal-weighted $SPX advance today (Tuesday), some might have felt like the market “got killed” Not quite, but important to pay close attention given the Cross-asset Volatility that kicked in today.”

Upcoming Economic Data

Here are the key events lined up for Wednesday.

Initial jobless claims, advanced durable goods orders, U.S. trade balance, retail and wholesale inventories, and the first revision of GDP will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Chicago Business Barometer (PMI) will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET.
Nominal personal income and spending data will be released at 10 a.m. ET.
PCE index and pending home sales data will be released at 10 a.m. ET.

Stocks To Watch:

Crowdstrike Holdings Inc CRWD was down over 6% in premarket after it reported a GAAP loss of $16.8 million in the third quarter, compared to the income of $26.7 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2024. Loss from operations as per GAAP standards stood at $55.7 million, compared to income of $3.2 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2024.
Dell Technologies Inc DELL declined 13.22% in premarket as the third-quarter revenue came in at $24.37 billion, which missed the consensus estimate of $24.65 billion.
HP Inc HPQ dipped 10% in pre-market trading. HP reported in-line earnings for its fourth quarter, while sales topped estimates.
Rigetti Computing, Inc RGTI jumped over 11% in pre-market trading after dipping 20% on Tuesday. The company announced a registered direct offering of 50 million shares at $2 per unit.
HWH International Inc HWH was up 100% in premarket after Alset Inc. bought 4,411,764 of its shares for a total of approximately $2.99 million. It was priced at 0.68 each, according to SEC filing.