Wall Street’s main indexes were set to open higher on Thursday as momentum from demand for cheaper tech-related stocks overshadowed elevated weekly jobless claims that suggested a choppy economic rebound.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits totaled a seasonally adjusted 884,000 for the week ended Sept. 5, matching the number of applications received in the prior week as layoffs and furloughs persisted across industries.
The U.S. Senate was set to vote later in the day on a significantly scaled back Republican coronavirus relief bill in what could be the final vote on fiscal aid in Congress before the Nov. 3 presidential and congressional elections.
Wall Street’s main indexes rebounded on Wednesday, snapping the biggest three-day rout since March, as investors returned to tech-focused stocks which are deemed insulated from the current economic downturn.
The CBOE volatility index, a gauge of investors’ fear, hit a near three-month high at the start of a historically tumultuous month of September after a stellar five-month rally in U.S. stocks, led by tech shares and backed by tremendous fiscal and monetary support.
Some of Wall Street’s biggest players are viewing the recent selloff as a bout of turbulence rather than the start of a longer slide.
“We’ll likely entering a period of consolidation and that’s welcomed by many market participants after the run that we’ve had. Sort of trying to get into a rational market environment,” said William Herrmann, founder and managing partner at Wilshire Phoenix in New York City.
At 8:57 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 3 points, or 0.01%. S&P 500 e-minis were up 7.75 points, or 0.23% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 103 points, or 0.9%.
The biggest U.S. company by market capitalization, Apple Inc, rose 2.2% premarket and Tesla Inc added 5%. Other heavyweights Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc were up between 0.6% and 0.8%.
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