Wall Street shifted toward gains before the opening bell today, according to the Associated Press, a day after rising bond yields pressured stocks and dragged down the technology sector. Futures for the Dow Jones industrials and the S&P 500 each ticked up 0.2%.
Bond yields stabilized somewhat overnight, with the two-year Treasury retreating to 5.11% from 5.15% late Tuesday. The 10-year followed suit, falling to 4.75% from 4.80% after touching its highest level since 2007.
In addition to the pressure from the bond market, a report Tuesday showing that U.S. employers have many more job openings than forecast helped to drag down markets. A resilient U.S. labor market has fortified expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will keep interest rates elevated for an extended period of time.
Despite an announcement from Saudi Arabia today that it would maintain production cuts through the end of the year, crude prices slid.
A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude lost $1.66 to $87.57 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange right after Saudi Arabia made its announcement. It rose 41 cents to settle at $89.23 on Tuesday. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up $1.55 to $89.37 per barrel.
In premarket trading today, egg producer Cal-Maine tumbled nearly 12% after it badly missed Wall Street’s profit targets. Cal-Maine posted profit of just 2 cents per share in its first quarter, a far cry from the $2.57 per-share profit it enjoyed in the same period a year ago as egg prices soared.
The dollar declined to 148.92 Japanese yen from 149.04 yen.
