A Peek Into The Markets: US Stock Futures Up; Dow Futures Surge Over 300 Points

Pre-open movers

U.S. stock futures traded higher in early pre-market trade, ahead of earnings from International Game Technology PLC IGT and Baidu, Inc. BIDU. The NAHB housing market index for May is scheduled for release at 10:00 a.m. ET.

The U.S. is now the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic with the highest number of cases and deaths around the world. Total COVID-19 cases in the U.S. exceeded 1,486,740 with around 89,560 deaths. Russia reported a total of at least 290,670 confirmed cases, while Britain confirmed over 244,990 cases.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 363 points to 23,880 while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures traded rose 43.6 points to 2,890.00. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index rose 124.5 points to 9,221.00.

Oil prices traded higher as Brent crude futures rose 3.8% to trade at $33.72 per barrel, while US WTI crude futures rose 5.4% to trade at $31.03 a barrel.

A Peek Into Global Markets

European markets were higher today, with the Spanish Ibex Index rising 2%, STOXX Europe 600 Index climbing 2% and German DAX 30 index gaining 2.2%. The UK's FTSE index was trading higher by 2.2%, while French CAC 40 Index rose 2.1%.

In Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.48%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.45%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.24% and India’s BSE Sensex fell 2.95%.

Broker Recommendation

Analysts at Telsey Advisory Group upgraded Best Buy Co Inc BBY from Market Perform to Outperform.

Best Buy shares rose 1.8% to close at $78.61 on Friday.

Breaking News

• Facebook Inc FB late Friday announced it has acquired popular graphics interchange format, or GIF, files platform Giphy.
• SoftBank Group Corporation SFTBY reported an operating loss of $12.7 billion for the entire financial year between April 2019 to March 2020. This compares with the $19.3 billion operating profit it posted in the similar period a year ago
• New York-based private equity firm General Atlantic announced plans to invest $871 million in Indian behemoth Reliance Industries Ltd.'s digital arm Jio Platforms.
• Tesla Inc. TSLA has received approval from Alameda County officials to restart production at its Fremont factory this week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.