Stock futures rose Monday morning, as the market tried to recover some of the losses from a relentless sell-off that has gripped Wall Street.
Futures on the Dow Industrial Average gained 265 points, or 0.8%. S&P 500 futures added 0.8%, and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.5%.
Shares of VMWare jumped more than 20% after Bloomberg News and Reuters reported, citing sources, that chipmaker Broadcom is in talks to acquire the cloud services company. Broadcom shares fell 5%.
Sentiment appeared to have gotten a boost after President Joe Biden said he was considering reducing tariffs on some products imported from China. “I am considering it,” Biden said. “We did not impose any of those tariffs. They were imposed by the last administration and they’re under consideration.”
The moves came after the S&P 500 on Friday dipped into bear market territory on an intraday basis. While the benchmark was down 20% at one point, it did not close in a bear market after a late-day comeback.
The S&P 500 currently sits 19% off its record high, while the Dow is down 15.4%. The Nasdaq is already deep in bear market territory, down 30% from its high.
Last week marked the Dow’s first eight-week losing streak since 1923, while the S&P 500 capped a seven-week losing streak, its worst since 2001.
The Nasdaq saw its seventh negative week in a row for the first time since March 2001. The tech-heavy index also saw its lowest intraday level since November 2020 on Friday.
“Investors are trying to come to grips with what exactly is happening and always try to guess what the outcome is,” said Susan Schmidt of Aviva Investors. “Investors hate, and the markets hate uncertainty, and this is a period where they don’t have any clear indication on what’s going to happen with this push-pull between inflation and the economy.”
Investors are looking ahead to a new batch of earnings this week, including an array of big retail names. Zoom Video is set to report results Monday followed by Costco, Nvidia, Dollar General, Nordstrom and Macy’s later in the week.
