U.S. stock futures rose on Monday, following a sharp sell-off in artificial intelligence stocks last week, while a busy earnings schedule provided a fresh test for market sentiment.
By 12:46 PM Saudi time, the Dow Jones futures contract remained virtually unchanged, while the Standard & Poor's 500 futures contract rose by 39 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq 100 futures contract jumped by 318 points, or 1.1%.
Vital Knowledge analysts said in a research note: The Nasdaq is seeing a rebound in the morning session so far, following a fierce sell-off, as investors hope that a week full of earnings will help boost sentiment towards the group.
This rebound followed a painful week, during which concerns mounted over debt financing for AI infrastructure, along with expectations that borrowing costs would remain high for an extended period. The Nasdaq Composite fell 4.5% last week, its first weekly decline after four consecutive weeks of gains, while the S&P 500 lost nearly 2%, its biggest weekly drop since late June. In contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7%.
AI chip stocks were among the hardest hit, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index on Friday falling to its longest losing streak since the 2008 financial crisis. CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV), the Nvidia-backed data center operator, lost about a quarter of its value last week, while shares of cloud computing giant Oracle also fell sharply.
Attention is now turning to the earnings reports of major technology companies this week, most notably Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA).
Oil prices and geopolitical developments remained in focus. Oil prices fell after US President Donald Trump exempted Russia from sanctions and tariffs, a move that could increase Russian fuel supplies. Iran's foreign minister also announced on Sunday via local media that the offer made to the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days still stood.
Brent crude futures fell 1.2% to $108.54 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude slipped 0.2% to $101.21 a barrel.
