Stock futures were sliding on Tuesday, as investors opted to take some profit ahead of another batch of quarterly earnings reports that could help determine if the current risk-on rally still has legs.
Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 77 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.1%, and contracts tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were also down 0.1%.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year note remained below 4%, sliding by 1 basis point to 3.97%. The dollar ticked up 0.2% against a weighted basket of its peers, and gold slid 0.4% to $4,340 an ounce.
The three major indexes rallied the previous session as the S&P 500 erased its losses from the Oct. 10 selloff, sparked by President Donald Trump threatening to hike tariffs on China. Monday’s gains came after Zions Bancorp reported better-than-expected earnings, easing fears about bad regional bank loans, and the market started to bet that the government shutdown would end sooner rather than later.
“The market continues to shrug off that brief, and largely unfounded round of jitters over U.S. regional banks from last week, and continues to re-focus on what remains a robust fundamental bull case,” Michael Brown, strategist at the foreign exchange brokerage Pepperstone, wrote. “That case remains one of solid earnings growth, a resilient underlying economy, and a looser monetary backdrop.”
Investors will get a better sense of how solid earnings growth looks tonight, with video streamer Netflix set to become the first major U.S. tech company to report its quarterly results. Until then, Wall Street will likely be in wait-and-see mode.