US pre-open: Futures trade higher following volatile week for stocks
Wall Street futures were in the green on Monday as market participants looked set to shake off anxiety stemming from last week's speculative retail trading mania.
As of 1235 GMT, Dow futures were up 0.85%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures were 1.09% and 1.14% higher, respectively.
The Dow closed 87.54 points higher on Friday, putting to an end a volatile week for stocks on a positive note.
In focus on Monday was news that ten Republican senators had pleaded with President Joe Biden to consider implement a smaller, more scaled back Covid-19 relief package than his current $1.9trn plan.
The opposition's call came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated the chamber would push to pass a budget resolution, the first step in approving the legislation through reconciliation without votes from the GOP.
Corporate earnings will be in focus again this week, with Warner Music Group reporting on Monday, while the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, Snap, Exxon, Biogen, Pfizer and Chipotle set to update the market on their latest quarterly performances later in the week.
GameStop, the heavily-shorted stock at the centre of last week's frenzied trading, was ahead 3% in pre-market trading, as the Reddit-led trading boom has now seemingly spread to other areas of the market, with futures contracts for silver surging 11% - their biggest single-day jump in over a decade.
However, SpreadEx's Connor Campbell noted that there was speculation that the discussion website was not quite as responsible for the latest moves as initially thought.
"Though there are pro-silver posts on WallStreetBets, the 'top post' on the subject is against the trade, claiming that by 'going long on silver, you would be directly putting money into the pockets of the EXACT HEDGE FUNDS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF $GME'. The same poster also stated that the short squeeze was 'a hedge-fund co-ordinated attack so they can keep fighting the $GME fight'," said Campbell.
"Essentially, there doesn't appear to be the same level of agreement, co-ordination or interest in the silver trade on WallStreeBets as there was, and still is, in GameStop. However, the cat might be out of the bag, with the retail trader revolution potentially now going beyond the pages of Reddit."
On the macro front, IHS Markit's January manufacturing PMI will be published at 1445 GMT, while the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing PMI will follow at 1500 GMT, as will December's construction spending figures.