By Niket Nishant and Avinash P
June 30 (Reuters) – Wall Street futures ticked higher on Tuesday, during the final trading day of a quarter that saw equities post the biggest gains in years.
A slew of economic data, including the JOLTS job openings report and the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index, will be in focus later in the day.
Equities have held up despite a tense geopolitical backdrop, an oil price shock and concerns about AI spending.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite indexes were on course for their best quarter in six years, while the blue-chip Dow was set for its biggest quarterly gain since 2022.
Recent weakness, however, left the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite on track to snap two-month winning streaks in June. The Dow Jones, meanwhile, has fared better and was poised for a third consecutive month of gains.
Some analysts are pinning their hopes on the upcoming earnings season to boost stocks, especially after last week’s punishing selloff in semiconductors and tech shares.
“Technology has been experiencing a period of June gloom, but that could easily reverse as earnings season approaches,” said Brian Levitt, chief global market strategist at Invesco.
Others warn that any meaningful gain in the second half of the year will need negotiations to end the U.S.-Iran conflict to produce a breakthrough.
Traders are pricing in at least one rate hike by the Federal Reserve by the end of 2026, according to data compiled by LSEG. They will watch Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s comments at a high-profile economic conference in Portugal later on Tuesday.
At 7:15 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 107 points, or 0.2%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 15.75 points, or 0.21%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 102.5 points, or 0.34%.
“Whether the price action is noise or signal will become clearer in the coming days — perhaps weeks — and will depend on a balance of geopolitical risks, U.S. rate uncertainty and the earnings outlook,” said Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com.
In the premarket session, shares of Concentrix dropped 22.7% after the customer experience firm lowered its forecasts for annual revenue and adjusted profit.
AeroVironment soared 30%, following a jump in quarterly revenue.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs shares dipped 1.2% and 0.5%, respectively, after brokerage Oppenheimer downgraded major Wall Street investment banks, recommending that investors redeploy capital into alternative asset managers.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant and Avinash P in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Joyjeet Das)
