Trump's Fed shake-up sends Wall St futures higher on rate easing hopes
At 6:52 a.m. ET, S&P 500 E-minis were up 19.5 points, or 0.31%, Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 74.5 points, or 0.32%, and Dow E-minis were up 107 points, or 0.24%.
Investors were being whipsawed by mixed signals over the Fed's future, as Trump's pressure stirs worries about the central bank's independence and a potential leadership reshuffle that could skew policy looser.
On Thursday, the U.S. president said he will nominate Council of Economic Advisers chair Stephen Miran for a short-term Fed seat while the White House hunts for a permanent governor and a new chair. Miran replaces Governor Adriana Kugler following her surprise resignation last week.
The S&P 500 and the Dow cooled in the last session after Bloomberg News reported Fed Governor Christopher Waller was emerging as a leading contender for the chair.
"He's (Miran) widely expected to join Waller and Michelle Bowman in the dovish camp for the few meetings he will attend, with a non-negligible risk he might try to build consensus for a 50 basis point move," ING analysts send in a note.
The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were on track for their best week in over a month, buoyed by tech names after signs they could sidestep new chip tariffs by building more in the United States.
Apart from tech stocks, equities have ridden a sharp reset in rate expectations and a flurry of upbeat earnings.
The CME FedWatch tool shows traders see a 90% chance of the first rate cut of the year coming next month - and futures point to at least two cuts by year-end.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 and the Dow ended lower, weighed down by a 14.1% drop in Eli Lilly after results from a late-stage study on its experimental GLP-1 pill fell behind that of Novo Nordisk's.
Sector-wise, consumer discretionary could top the leaderboard this week, while healthcare lags, weighed down mainly by Eli Lilly.
Meanwhile, U.S. tariffs on a bunch of trading partners took effect at midnight on Thursday. Tokyo's trade negotiator said Washington will amend a presidential executive order to remove overlapping tariffs on Japanese goods, terming it as oversight.
In earnings-related moves, Trade Desk sank 30% in premarket trading after the ad-tech firm reported a sharp slowdown in second-quarter revenue growth.
Pinterest tumbled 11% as the social media platform missed analysts' estimates for second-quarter profit.
Microchip Technology lost 7.9% after the chipmaker's first-quarter results failed to impress investors.
St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem is scheduled to speak later at 10:20 a.m. ET.
(Reporting by Nikhil Sharma and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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