Wall St poised for dull start to 2024

U.S. stock index futures slipped on Tuesday, setting a somber tone for the first trading day of 2024, as Apple dipped on a broker downgrade and investors pondered if last year’s big market gains could be sustained.

The three major U.S. stock indexes notched monthly, quarterly and annual gains on Friday as traders priced in higher chances of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve this year on the back of cooling inflation.For 2023, the benchmark S&P 500, the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the blue-chip Dow posted double-digit gains. The S&P 500 wrapped up Friday within 1% of its record closing high reached on Jan. 3, 2022.However, U.S. stock futures came under pressure on Tuesday, with the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, a benchmark for global borrowing costs, ticking above 4.0000% to a two-week high earlier in the session, before easing to 3.9594%.Megacap stocks including Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet lost between 0.7% and 1.1% in premarket trading. Apple fell 1.8% after Barclays downgraded the iPhone maker’s stock to “underweight”.

via Reuters