A former Senior Publishing Editor on the Dow Jones Newswires team at The Wall Street Journal, Aaron earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and a Master’s in Journalism from Columbia University.
Stock futures were poised for a sharply lower open Friday, the last day of a positive month of trading for major indexes, as precious metals sold off and investors awaited President Donald Trump’s pick to succeed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.8%, 0.7%, and 0.7%, respectively. Major stock indexes finished mostly lower yesterday, pulled down by shares of Microsoft and software companies, as investors digested a flurry of corporate earnings reports.
Still, the blue-chip Dow, benchmark S&P 500, and tech-heavy Nasdaq entered the day up a respective 2%, 1.8%, and 0.8% for January, with the Dow on pace for its ninth straight month of gains. For the week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were up 0.8% through Thursday, while the Dow was about 0.1% lower.
Last night, President Trump said, “I’ll be announcing the Fed chair tomorrow morning.” According to several media reports, Trump is expected to select former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh to lead the central bank.
Traders also will be paying attention to the delayed Producer Price Index report for December, set to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists are expecting both PPI and “core” PPI to have risen 0.3% month-over-month, up from 0.2% in November.
Safe-haven gold and silver futures retreated Friday as traders locked in gains after the precious metals soared to their latest record highs yesterday. Gold prices fell 4.5% in recent trading to about $5,100 an ounce after hitting above $5,625 Thursday, while silver futures plummeted about 13% to below $100 after reaching above $121.75 an ounce yesterday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury — which impacts interest rates on a variety of consumer loans including mortgages — was trading around 4.26%, up from Thursday’s close of 4.24%.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of global currencies, was up 0.3% at 96.62 but near its lowest level in more than four years. Bitcoin was trading at around $82,700, down from its overnight high of about $84,600.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the U.S. benchmark, slipped 1% to around $64.70 a barrel.
