(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Thursday as most banking stocks rose after clearing the Federal Reserve’s annual stress test, while megcap stocks looked to extend gains despite the prospect of further interest rate hikes.
Bank of America rose 1.1% in premarket trading, while JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo rose in thin trading after the banks sailed through the Fed’s annual test on Wednesday, showing they have enough capital to weather a severe economic slump.
Bank of New York Mellon and Charles Schwab rose almost 2%, while Citigroup slipped 0.5%.
The S&P 500 and Dow closed lower on Wednesday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he did not see inflation falling to the central bank’s target rate “this year or next year” and that most of the policymakers expect the central bank will need to raise interest rates at least twice more by year’s end.
Following the hawkish views, traders were pricing in an 81.8% chance the Fed would hike interest rates by 25 basis point to 5.25%-5.50% range in its July meeting, according to CME Group’s Fedwatch tool, up from 74.4% a week ago.
Investors are awaiting fresh data including the final reading of first-quarter U.S. GDP and weekly jobless claims, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, for clues on the outlook for rates.
The Personal Consumption Expenditure index (PCE), the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, for May will be released on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters expect core rates to remain steady at 4.7%.
At 5:42 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 66 points, or 0.19%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 8 points, or 0.18%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 38 points, or 0.25%.
Micron Technology rose 3.8% after the chipmaker beat estimates for third-quarter results, powered by demand for its memory chips.
Apple inched 0.2% higher after closing at a record high on Thursday and edging closer to a $3 trillion market capitalization.
Shares of other high-growth companies such as Tesla and Nvidia rose more than 1% each.
Walt Disney dipped 0.5% after a report said KeyBanc downgraded the stock to “sector weight” from “overweight”.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
