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Madrid - US stock-index futures climbed, after fluctuating between gains and losses, as investors assess yesterday’s rout in American equities that sent the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its steepest loss in more than three months.
JPMorgan Chase advanced 1.8% after its fourth- quarter profit beat estimates amid lower expenses. Bank of America Corporation added 1.2% after losing 2.7% on Wednesday. Best Buy sank 7.7% after reporting a decline in holiday sales.
S&P 500 E-mini futures contracts expiring in March rose 0.5% to 1 890.25 at 7:57 a.m. in New York. The benchmark plunged on Wednesday, with declines in Amazon.com and Netflix pacing the selloff. Damage was heaviest among small-cap shares, with the Russell 2000 Index plunging to 2 1/2 year low and into a bear market. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 72 points to 16 128 today.
US stocks have had the worst-ever start to a year amid China market weakness that fanned concerns that a slowdown in that economy will spread. Investors are turning their attention to corporate earnings to gauge the health of the US economy. Intel reports after markets close, while Citigroup and BlackRock results are due tomorrow. Analysts estimate profits for S&P 500 members fell 6.7% last quarter.
“We’ll have to digest all these earnings numbers and then we’ll have a clearer picture, but if you look around the world there’s not many positive drivers,” said Benno Galliker, a trader at Luzerner Kantonalbank AG. “Play it safe, that’s the message at the moment.”
The US stock selloff is an “emotional response” obscuring expansion in both the American economy and corporate profits, Abby Joseph Cohen, president of Goldman Sachs Group’s Global Markets Institute, said today. The fair value for Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is 2 100, she said.
The main US equity index has declined 11% from its record set in May, and is just 1.2% above the bottom of an August swoon, which was also sparked by anxiety over the impact of China’s weakness on worldwide growth.
