MW: Wall Street braced for a loss as oil prices pull back
Stock futures pointed to a weaker start for Wall Street on Monday in a holiday-shortened week, with oil prices under pressure and trading volumes expected to be low as some traders not expected to return until after New Year’s.
Dow Jones Industrial Average YMH6, -0.47% futures dropped 84 points, or 0.5%, to 17,365, while those for the S&P 500 index ESH6, -0.40% eased 9.95 points, or 0.5%, to 2,041.25. Nasdaq Composite futures NQH6, -0.23% dropped 15.25 points, or 0.3%, to 4,595.75.
The S&P 500 SPX, -0.16% booked a gain of 2.8% last week, which was shortened by the Christmas holiday. But on Thursday, the index fell 0.2% as nine of its 10 main sectors closed lower, led by a 0.9% loss for the energy sector.
With just four trading days left to the year, investors will be looking at a final chance for stocks to rally this week and add to a meager return of just 0.1% for the S&P 500 in 2015. Since 1928, the index has managed an average gain of 1.3% in the last five trading days of the year, 76% of the time.
Read: Dow industrials, S&P 500 face make-or-break week for 2015
But markets have been weighed by losses for commodity prices, specifically oil CLG6, -2.65% That pattern showed no signs of letting up this week as U.S. crude prices began falling in Asia, and were last off 2.5%. U.S. crude rallied 5.7% in last week’s Christmas-shortened session. Brent oil futures LCOG6, -2.35% were off by around 2%.
“With oil prices currently closely linked to risk appetite, tumbling oil prices pushed European and Asian stock markets down,” noted Charalambos Pissouros, senior technical analyst at IronFX, in a note.
“Global markets will also have to deal with the prospect of oil supplies from Iran as the nation has reiterated its willingness to bring exports back to pre-sanctions levels,” he wrote.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index SXXP, -0.41% was off 0.4% on Monday, led by losses for major oil companies. In Asia, the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -2.59% slid 2.6%, the most in a month, and a small part of the mainland market, the so-called B shares, plunged by 7.9%.
Stocks to watch: Shares of Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.45% could be active. The company said Monday that more than three million new members signed up for Amazon Prime in the third week of December; the biggest day ever for Prime Now deliveries came on Christmas Eve; and Prime members shopping via mobile more than doubled over the holiday season.
FedEx Corp. FDX, -0.71% was forced to make deliveries on Christmas Day due to heavy storms across the Southeast and Midwest over the weekend that delayed packages.
