US Stocks To Open Higher In Yet Another Truncated Week: Nvidia, Robotic Stocks In Focus Ahead Of CES 2025

U.S. stock futures advanced on Monday after ending their losing streak on Friday. Futures of all four major indices rose in premarket trade.

This is yet another truncated week as the U.S. stock markets will remain closed for former President Jimmy Carter’s “National Day of Mourning” on Thursday, Jan. 9.

The 10-year and two-year Treasury notes yielded 4.61% and 4.27%, respectively. The probability of having no change in the interest rates for the upcoming Jan. 31, 2025 decision was at 90.9%, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

Futures	Change (+/-)
Nasdaq 100	0.70%
S&P 500	0.42%
Dow Jones	0.04%
Russell 2000	0.10%

In premarket trading on Monday, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY was up 0.42% to $594.44 and the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF QQQ rose 0.74% to $522.40, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Cues From The Last Session

Following a five-day decline, the longest such streak since April, Wall Street experienced a strong rebound on Friday. Investor confidence returned, driving a surge in market activity. All major indices saw positive returns, with the Nasdaq 100 leading the gains. This broad-based market strength was evident across all S&P 500 sectors.

Furthermore, the latest ISM Manufacturing PMI data surpassed forecasts, indicating a stronger-than-expected manufacturing sector in December. This marks the second month in a row of manufacturing expansion.

U.S. automakers experienced significant price actions following the release of fourth-quarter delivery numbers. The consumer discretionary sector outperformed the consumer staples.

Index	Performance (+/-)	Value
Nasdaq Composite	1.77%	19,621.68
S&P 500	1.26%	5,942.47
Dow Jones	0.80%	42,732.13
Russell 2000	1.72%	2,268.47

Insights From Analysts

The chief market strategist at Carson Research, Ryan Detrick highlighted in an X post that the average annual returns have been higher 64.7% times in the years that saw the stocks decline on the first or the last day of the year.

S&P 500 down the last trading day of the year and first day of the following year?

Happened the past 3 years actually and '23 and '24 both did fine.

I wouldn't ever invest in just this, but interesting given all the talk about recent weakness. pic.twitter.com/OOnujvo8YR
— Ryan Detrick, CMT (@RyanDetrick) January 5, 2025

The economic week ahead is chockful of labor market indicators for November and December. Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research said, “We’re expecting them to beat expectations. As long as corporate earnings continue to reach new record highs, companies are likely to hire more workers and increase real wages.”

“The Q4-2024 earnings reporting season is about to start, led by the big banks. We expect that during their conference calls, company managements will discuss how AI may be starting to boost their productivity. In effect, they’ll be trying to convince investors that every company is now a technology company either producing AI hardware and software or using them,” added Yardeni.

Talking further about earnings, Louis Navellier of Navellier and Associates said, “Stocks, thankfully, trade on earnings prospects, and those remain solid. The tech giants steering the market generate massive cash flows and are affected little by interest rate levels.”

“The AI potential is very real in terms of promising major productivity gains, though that may come from meaningful reductions in employment needed to get the same functions accomplished,” he added.

See Also: How to Trade Futures

Upcoming Economic Data

Several important data points will be released in this truncated week that will help investors determine the future course of action.

On Monday, S&P’s final U.S. services PMI for December will be announced at 9:45 a.m., ET.
November's factory orders data will be released at 10:00 a.m., ET.
On Tuesday, Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin will be speaking at 8:00 a.m., ET.
U.S. trade deficit data for November will be released at 8:30 a.m., ET.
ISM services data for December and job openings data for November will be announced at 10:00 a.m., ET.
On Wednesday, December’s ADP employment data will be released at 8:15 a.m., ET.
The minutes of the Fed’s December FOMC meeting will be released at 2:00 p.m., ET.
Consumer credit data for December will be announced at 3:00 p.m., ET.
On Thursday, initial jobless claims till Jan. 4 will be announced at 8:30 a.m., ET.
Wholesale inventories data for November will be released at 10:00 a.m., ET.
On Friday, the U.S. employment report, unemployment rate, and hourly wages data for December along with hourly wages year over year will be released at 8:30 a.m., ET.
The preliminary consumer sentiment data for January will be announced at 10:00 a.m., ET.

Stocks In Focus:

Nvidia Corp. NVDA was 1.87% up in premarket as Wall Street is expecting its CEO Jensen Huang to deliver a keynote address on Monday night at CES 2025. His comments will be important for the semiconductor and AI chip space.
Robotics stocks like Nauticus Robotics Inc. KITT were up 95.26%, Richtech Robotics Inc. RR was up 30.81%, Microbot Medical Inc. MBOT was up 58.81% and Arbe Robotics Ltd. ARBE was up 16.73% ahead of CES 2025.
Plug Power PLUG was up 7.98% following the Biden administration’s announcement of new rules allowing some nuclear power plants to qualify for tax credits when producing clean hydrogen.
General Motors GM was up 1.26% and Ford Motor Co. F was up 1.42% after reporting strong 2024 sales. Both carmakers’ sales grew by over 4% for the year, which marked their highest overall sales since 2019.
Cerence Inc. CRNC was up 20.43% after it announced an extension to its partnership with technology giant Nvidia. It is expected to boost their family of CaLLM language models, including their cloud-based automotive language model.

Commodities, Gold And Global Equity Markets:

Crude oil futures were lower in the early New York session by 0.04% to hover around $73.93 per barrel.

The gold spot index was down by 0.37% to $2,644.81 per ounce. The Dollar Index was down 0.32% to 108.606 level.

Asian markets were mostly lower on Monday as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, Japan’s Nikkei 225, India’s S&P BSE Sensex and China’s CSI 300 index declined. Whereas, in Australia’s ASX 200, South Korea’s Kospi index ended higher. European markets were mixed.

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