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Investing.com — U.S. stock futures weakened Friday, with Wall Street on course to post a losing week with sentiment hit by the potential for further monetary tightening later in the year.
By 07:55 ET (11:55 GMT), the contract was down 105 points, or 0.3%, traded 20 points, or 0.5% lower, and dropped 85 points, or 0.6%.
The three main equity averages closed in a mixed fashion Thursday, but the blue-chip is on course to drop 1% this week, the broad-based 0.6%, and the tech-heavy 0.4% lower, breaking multi-week win streaks.
Fed speakers in focus
Federal Reserve Chair repeated his view that the U.S. central bank is likely to hike interest rates a couple of more times, during the second day of his semi-annual testimony on Thursday.
“We don’t want to do more than we have to,” Powell said, to the Senate Banking Committee. “Overwhelmingly people on the (Federal Open Market) Committee do think that there’s more rate hikes coming but we want to make them at a pace that allows us to see incoming information.”
The a greater than 75% probability that the next rate hike will come in July, and investors will focus on comments from a series of Fed officials, including St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, and Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, for more clues of future monetary policy.
PMI data looms large
The main economic release Friday will be the June surveys, which are expected to show the country’s activity stagnating while the sector still expands.
However, this follows surprisingly soft readings in the euro zone, Japan, and Britain, suggesting downside risk is a possibility.
In corporate news, earnings are due from the likes of used car seller CarMax (NYSE:) as well as building materials provider Apogee Enterprises (NASDAQ:).
Oil lower; Hefty weekly losses likely
Crude prices weakened Friday, heading for chunky weekly losses after the series of interest rate hikes, and warnings of more to come in the U.S., raised concerns of global demand growth.
By 07:55 ET, futures were 1.3% lower at $68.64 a barrel, while the contract fell 1.1% to $73.06 per barrel. Both contracts were now on course to lose over 3% each this week.
The aggressive stance taken by a number of central banks this week has raised fears that economic activity will suffer, hitting oil demand this year.
Additionally, rose 0.3% to $1,929.05/oz, while traded 0.7% lower at 1.0877.
(Oliver Gray contributed to this item.)
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