Investing.com — U.S. stock futures traded in a muted fashion Tuesday, consolidating after the previous session’s gains ahead of the release of a deluge of heavyweight corporate earnings.
By 06:30 ET (11:30 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was down 45 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 Futures traded largely unchanged and Nasdaq 100 Futures was broadly flat.
The main U.S. averages closed higher on Monday, continuing the recent rally, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining close to 140 points, or 0.4%, closing above 38,000 for the first time ever.
These recent stock market gains, after a weak start to the year, have been generated by hopes that the Federal Reserve will quickly start cutting interest rates this year, resulting in a «soft landing» for the U.S. economy.
There is some important economic data due later this week that could influence this thinking–fourth quarter GDP on Wednesday and December's personal consumption expenditures data on Thursday.
Ahead of this investors are likely to focus on quarterly results from some big names, as the recent momentum could disappear if the earnings over the next few weeks fail to justify relatively high valuations.
Streaming giant Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) is the biggest name scheduled to release results Tuesday, after the close, and expectations are generally upbeat, in part due to its crackdown on password-sharing and the start of paid sharing in countries that account for more than 80% of revenue.
Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), consumer goods behemoth Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), as well as manufacturing conglomerates 3M (NYSE:MMM) and General Electric (NYSE:GE) are due before the start of U.S. trading.
Elsewhere, United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) stock
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