US pre-open: Futures surge on vaccine hopes
Wall Street futures were sharply higher ahead of the bell on Wednesday following positive results from early trials of a coronavirus vaccine.
As of 1235 BST, Dow futures were up 1.65%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 1.29% and 0.88% firmer, respectively.
The Dow closed 556.79 points higher on Tuesday following results from several of the country's biggest banks.
Stocks surged in pre-market trading on Wednesday after pharmaceutical giant Moderna revealed that its coronavirus vaccine had produced antibodies in all patients taking part in an early trial of the drug, raising hopes of a faster economic turnaround.
Moderna said its potential Covid-19 vaccine produced a "robust" immune response in all 45 patients in its early stage human trial, according to the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine.
Although the company had already flagged that result in May, it had not provided a full read out of the data from the trial.
Oanda's Craig Erlam said: "Stock markets have been given another lift this morning by another promising vaccine trial, this time from Moderna, as the race to be the first to market intensifies.
It goes without saying that a vaccine will be the gamechanger in the pandemic, the thing that will allow life to return to normal and businesses and households to thrive once again. So it's hardly surprising that investors get a little excited when the results of these trials emerge, even those in the early stages. The boost tends to be relatively short-lived though and in a week like this, there's plenty of distractions."
Reports also indicated that further announcements regarding Oxford University's vaccine candidate - widely considered to be the front-runner in the fight to break the pandemic's back - might also be imminent.
As far as the focus for the rest of the session goes, market participants will be locked in on another raft of corporate earnings from the likes of Goldman Sachs, Bank of NY Mellon, US Bancorp and United Health.
Goldman Sachs shares traded higher in pre-market after reporting a 41% increase in revenues to $4.24bn - blowing past estimates on the Street and leading to the bank's second-highest ever quarterly revenue performance in its history.
However, rising tensions between Washington and Beijing were also in focus after Donald Trump signed legislation to revoke Hong Kong's privileges in response to Beijing's interference in the special administrative region's autonomy.
On the macro front, import and export prices for June will be published at 1330 BST, as will July's New York Empire State Manufacturing Index, while industrial production figures will follow at 1415 BST and the Fed's Beige Book will be released at 1900 BST.
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia president Patrick Harker will speak at 1700 BST.