Global stocks and U.S. stock futures edged up on Monday, as investors awaited a busy week of corporate earnings, economic data and central-bank decisions.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 added 0.1% after the benchmark stocks gauge posted its biggest one-week loss since late October. U.S. stock and bond markets are closed Monday for Martin Luther King Day.
Stocks have wobbled in recent days after a strong start to the year fueled by hopes of a vaccine-induced economic recovery that could be aided by further fiscal stimulus under the incoming administration. Though many investors expect the rally to continue, they say stocks are likely to remain bumpy in the coming weeks amid signs that high coronavirus case rates are hurting economic activity.
“The markets are in a way front-running the recovery and the normalization of economic activity,” said Agnès Belaisch, chief European strategist at the Barings Investment Institute. Stocks are bound to pause intermittently given the disconnect between the market and the way Covid-19 restrictions are crimping the economic recovery, she said.
Investors this week will parse quarterly earnings from dozens of big companies, including J.B. Hunt Transport Services , UnitedHealth Group and Intel , for guidance about the outlook for profits and revenue over the course of 2021. Monetary-policy decisions by the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan are also on tap, as well as surveys that will give an indication of business activity at the start of the year and President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
