Stock futures are little changed after S&P 500 extends rally for a fourth day: Live updates
A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., May 12, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stock futures traded near the flatline Thursday night after the S&P 500 posted a four-day rally on the back of U.S. and China's temporary tariff cuts and encouraging inflation reports.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 50 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures slipped 0.1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures inched down 0.05%.
Stocks have made a strong comeback since U.S. and Chinese officials earlier this week agreed on a 90-day truce in their tariff measures, which eased investors' fears of escalating global trade tensions and rising risk to the economy.
The S&P 500 rose for a fourth straight day on Thursday and closed the session 0.41% higher, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.65%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 0.18%.
"Today was just a continuation of what we've seen over the past few days, this sigh of relief in response to the U.S. bringing down tariff rates on China," said Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management. "There's still this big question about what tariffs could mean for the economy, and right now investors are looking for that center of gravity and assessing the economic damage. But at the moment, it seems like moves are driving markets in the absence of any signals coming out of economic data."
Thursday's action was aided by a soft inflation report, showing that wholesale prices declined 0.5% in April from the prior month.
Much of the market's recent surge has been powered by a comeback in major technology names. Nvidia and Tesla are each up about 15% this week, while Big Tech giants Meta Platforms and Amazon have jumped 8% and 6%, respectively. This week, the S&P 500 is up 4.5%. The 30-stock Dow has added more than 2% and the Nasdaq Composite has climbed 6.6% week to date.
Even as the temporary agreement between the U.S. and China has lifted sentiment this week, some major U.S. companies are issuing warnings about rising costs and a murky macroeconomic outlook. Walmart said on Thursday that it will likely have to raise prices on some items toward the end of May due to tariffs.
"That concern didn't make its way into markets that was overshadowed by this, by this tech-led sigh of relief from the tariff news that we got Monday, but there is an undercurrent of anxiety," Cox said of the Walmart warning. "We're getting these little signs of tariff impact that haven't really overwhelmed investors' attention yet, but could could be indicative of cracks forming underneath the surface."
On the economic front, traders will keep an eye out Friday for housing starts data and the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey.
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