US stock futures were flat Friday morning as investors looked to recover from Wall Street’s sharpest sell-off in more than a month.
Contracts tied to Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F), the S&P 500 (ES=F), and the Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) all hovered around the baseline.
The cautious early rebound follows a bruising session for US equities. All major indexes logged their steepest one-day declines in over a month. The Dow (^DJI) erased record-setting gains that had put it above 48,000 for the first time, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led declines as heavyweights Nvidia (NVDA), Broadcom (AVGO), and Tesla (TSLA) all tanked.
Uncertainty around the Federal Reserve’s next policy move has begun to weigh on sentiment, as a jubilant mood from the end of the six-week government shutdown prompts fresh questions about the state of the US economy. Traders now see a roughly 52% chance of a quarter-point rate cut in December, down sharply from nearly 63% just a day earlier and more than 95% a month ago.
In recent days, a wave of Fed officials have delivered more hawkish commentary. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said recent data has shown “more of the same” resilience in the economy, suggesting he could view a rate hold as the best option. He said, however, that “I can make a case” for either option.
Questions remain as to what data will end up being released — and in what form it will be unveiled — now that the government is reopen. While markets had expected the restart of key releases, the White House has said that “all of that economic data released will be permanently impaired.”
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