US pre-open: Futures higher as energy prices remain in focus
Wall Street futures were pointing to early gains ahead of the bell on Tuesday as market participants continued to zero in on moves in the energy market.
As of 1235 BST, Dow Jones futures were up 0.10%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.27% and 0.37% firmer, respectively.
The Dow closed 327.0 points higher on Monday as the blue-chip index kicked off the second quarter in much the same way it wrapped up the first.
Investors were still focussed on oil prices prior to the opening bell, with West Texas Intermediate futures rising 1.02% to $81.24 per barrel, building on its biggest daily gain in almost 12 months, while Brent Crude futures advanced 0.93% to $85.82 per barrel. Tuesday morning's moves come after crude prices got a boost on Monday after OPEC+ announced it would slash output by 1.16m barrels of oil per day.
Comments from JP Morgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon were also drawing an amount of attention before the start of trading, with the bank's head honcho warning that the US banking crisis was far from being over.
"The current crisis is not yet over, and even when it is behind us, there will be repercussions from it for years to come," Dimon said. "Any crisis that damages Americans' trust in their banks damages all banks – a fact that was known even before this crisis. While it is true that this bank crisis 'benefited' larger banks due to the inflow of deposits they received from smaller institutions, the notion that this meltdown was good for them in any way is absurd."
On the macro front, February factory orders data will be published at 1400 BST, as will February JOLTs job figures.
Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook Cook and Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland president Loretta Mester will deliver speeches at 1730 BST and 2245 BST, respectively.
No major corporate earnings were slated for release on Tuesday.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com