MW: U.S. stock futures edge higher after Monday's pounding
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures edged higher Tuesday after a pounding in the previous session, with markets looking to see if expected housing data can soothe battered bulls.
S&P 500 futures rose 4.3 points to 892.90 and Nasdaq 100 futures added 4.25 points to 1,432.20. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 27 points.
Worries about the potential for an economic recovery dragged U.S. stocks to their worst one-day performance in two months on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 201 points, the S&P 500 falling 28 points and the Nasdaq Composite shedding 61 points.
After the S&P 500 fell below 900 on Monday, "danger looms of a pullback towards the May low of 879," said Kenneth Broux, an economist at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets.
Kevin Gardiner, head of global equity strategy at HSBC, said he's still positive on the market.
"On a six-month view we think that the risk of being out of the market is bigger than that of being in it: we are not cutting cyclical and financial weights, and we are overweight emerging markets because we think they are high beta," he said in a note to clients. "And the glacier of liquidity frozen in money market mutual funds looks as if it may slowly be starting to thaw."
Tuesday's calendar will feature releases from the housing markets -- existing-home sales data for May and April FHFA house price data both at 10 a.m. Eastern -- with traders looking for further signs that the key part of the economy is stabilizing.
There's also an auction of $40 billion in two-year notes. Yields on two-year notes were up 2 basis points to 1.17% while those for the 10-year were steady at 3.68%. Yields move in the opposite direction to prices.
On the earnings front, Kroger (KR 21.78, +0.32, +1.49%) reports results, with business software giant Oracle (ORCL 19.97, -0.69, -3.34%) reporting after the close.
In overseas trading, Asian stocks were hammered while Europe stocks were choppy.
The Nikkei 225 finished 2.8% lower in Tokyo and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 3.1%. The pan-Europe Stoxx 600 fell 0.1% in late morning trade.
Oil futures fell 41 cents to $67.09 a barrel and the dollar dropped vs. the Japanese yen.
