Dow futures jump 1% as Wall Street opens busy earnings week

Dow Jones futures rose 547 points, or 1%, while S&P 500 futures pointed to a 0.5% gain and Nasdaq futures held flat as Wall Street opened a busy August.

"If anyone thought things would be quiet for markets this August, they are only heating up," said Kathleen Brooks, market analyst at XTB.

Last week ended with technology in the lead, leaving the Nasdaq up 1% to 25,373, the S&P 500 up 0.7% to 7,489 and the Dow up 0.5% to 52,485. The rebound followed a difficult July, when the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index tumbled 20.6% — its worst month since 2008 — and the Nasdaq dropped 3.2%, while the S&P 500 and Dow were broadly flat as investors rotated into non-technology sectors.

About 20% of the S&P 500 reports this week, with AMD, Caterpillar, McDonald's, Eli Lilly, Disney, Uber, Airbnb and Berkshire Hathaway among the names due. The calendar follows a volatile July that left the major averages looking to stabilize.

Yen Intervention and Cross-Asset Moves

Attention is fixed on the yen after the US and Japan confirmed their first coordinated currency intervention since 2011. The yen strengthened another 0.5% against the dollar to 156.60, having gained more than 4% last week. Tokyo may have spent almost $59 billion buying yen on Thursday, with Washington reportedly providing a further $5-10 billion; both countries have indicated they are prepared to intervene again.

Crude prices fell as President Donald Trump called off planned strikes against Iran, with Brent losing about 6% to $82.95 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate shedding nearly 7% to $78.93. Treasury yields eased as inflation worries dimmed, with the benchmark 10-year yield sliding 7 basis points to about 4.67%.

Across the Atlantic, the Stoxx 600 rose 0.3% as European carmakers advanced almost 2.3%, with Germany's DAX up 1.3% and France's CAC 40 adding almost 1.1%, though the UK's FTSE 100 dipped almost 0.1%. Asia-Pacific markets ended mixed, with South Korea's Kospi falling over 5% and Japan's Nikkei 225 sliding 0.94%, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.47% higher and China's CSI 300 fell 0.98%.

Ahead of the open, Bristol Myers Squibb rose over 4% after a Financial Times report that AstraZeneca, Britain's biggest drugmaker, is in talks to buy its US rival.

The week's labor data culminates Friday with July non-farm payrolls, expected to show 87,500 jobs added, up from 57,000 the prior month, with the unemployment rate edging higher to 4.3% from 4.2%. For investors, the question is whether the tech rebound has further to run or whether the July rotation into value names persists — a call that this week's earnings and payrolls data will help settle.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.