Jan 6 (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were muted on Tuesday as investors took a breather after Wall Street posted its biggest intraday gains in weeks in the previous session, while markets braced for a data-heavy week of labor reports.
A rally in financial stocks was the main driver of robust gains on Wall Street on Monday that sent the blue-chip Dow to a record high. The Dow is about 2% away from the historic 50,000 mark.
Energy companies provided a boost as well, and were largely in the spotlight after U.S. military forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro over the weekend, and investors bet the move could allow U.S. firms access to Venezuelan oil reserves.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration plans to meet executives from oil companies later this week to discuss boosting production in Venezuela.
On Tuesday, oil firms stabilized, with SLB rising 1.9%, and giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron up 0.5% and 0.8% respectively in premarket trading.
At 5:36 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 83 points, or 0.17%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 3.5 points, or 0.05%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 7.25 points, or 0.02%.
Investors were watching for a “Santa Claus rally” — a seasonal pattern in which stocks often get a late boost over the last five trading days of December and the first two of January, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac — but the S&P 500 was flat over that span this year.
This week, a series of labor market data will be on investors’ radar including December’s crucial nonfarm payrolls numbers on Friday that can influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy path.
The dataset commands renewed importance after Fed Chair Jerome Powell urged caution against further reductions at the central bank’s December meeting until there was more clarity on the health of the labor market.
The final reading of S&P Global’s business activity survey for December and comments from Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin will be parsed.
Among stocks, Vistra gained 4.5% before the bell after announcing a deal to buy Cogentrix Energy from Quantum Capital Group for about $4.7 billion.
Microchip Technology gained 4.4% after raising expectations for its third-quarter net sales on Monday.
(Reporting by Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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