Stock futures were rising early Tuesday as investors awaited key jobs and inflation data, and a hotly anticipated Apple product launch event.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were broadly flat early in the day, S&P 500 futures rose 0.1% and Nasdaq futures pointed 0.2% higher as tech stocks looked set to lead the market higher again after the index closed at a record high Monday. Apple’s annual product event starts Tuesday, which could be another catalyst for the tech sector.
All three indexes finished higher in the previous session, with the S&P 500 closing within touching distance of a new record.
While investors are optimistic that multiple rate cuts are coming, several data points are worth watching in the days ahead. First up is revisions to jobs data Tuesday morning.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release numbers showing preliminary benchmark revisions to net payroll growth for the 12 months ended in March 2025, which could cloud what was initially thought of as a strong labor market for much of the last year.
Economists at Goldman Sachs, J.P Morgan, Nomura Securities, and Royal Bank of Canada expect the agency to mark down net job gains by as much as 900,000 on an annual basis, or by about 74,000 a month, on average, which could mean growth in some months was negative. The current reported monthly gain for the year is around 149,000.
That would add to an increasingly murky economic picture after a weak jobs report on Friday sent stocks into a slump. Today’s revisions will be followed by inflation data later this week—the producer prices index is due to be released Wednesday before the consumer prices index (CPI) on Thursday and both have the capacity to affect the Federal Reserve’s thinking on interest rates.
While a quarter-point cut by the central bank is widely expected at its September meeting next week, the chances of a bumper 50 points cut are seen as more likely than before—with markets now pricing in just over a 10% likelihood the Fed will go big compared with zero chance a week ago, according the the CME FedWatch tool.
“A heavy subtraction from the worker roster alongside a downside miss on the CPI is likely to raise the odds of a half-percent to a coin-flip,” wrote Jose Torres, a senior economist at Interactive Brokers. He said the market anticipates “around 75 basis points of reductions this year, with this month’s meeting potentially featuring a super-sized 50, especially if…benchmark revisions for nonfarm payrolls shaves a million workers off the count.”
Among equities the big focus will be Apple, which is launching its annual product event. Investors are hungry for new features and capabilities that could spur customers to upgrade their devices. Any surprises have the potential to move it and related stocks, fueling the tech rally.
The dollar was another casualty of Friday’s poor jobs report—falling to its lowest in nearly seven weeks against a basket of currencies and today’s revisions have the capacity to dent it further. The DXY dollar index fell to a low of 97.259 early Tuesday.
Among treasuries, the two-year Treasury yield rose 0.8 basis points to 3.502%, the 10-year Treasury yield rose 0.7 bp to 4.051%, while the 30-year yield was up 0.9 bp at 4.698%, according to Tradeweb.