By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening higher Friday, bouncing at the end of a difficult week as investors fretted about the likelihood of slowing growth with persistent inflation pushing the Federal Reserve into aggressive monetary policy tightening.
At 7 AM ET (1100 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 250 points, or 0.8%, S&P 500 Futures traded 45 points, or 1.2%, higher and Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed 205 points, or 1.7%.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned in an interview on Thursday that getting inflation under control could cause some economic pain, adding that a so-called soft landing will be difficult to accomplish. That said, he also pushed back against the idea of raising key interest rates by 75 basis points at the Fed’s next policy meeting.
The U.S. central bank raised its benchmark overnight interest rate by 50 basis points last week, the largest hike in 22 years.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average closed over 100 points lower on Thursday, its sixth straight negative session, while the broad-based S&P 500 closed more than 18% below its all-time high, rapidly approaching an official bear market.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite posted a small gain on Thursday but has suffered the brunt of the recent selling and is already in a bear market, down more than 29% from its all-time high.
In the corporate sector, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) stock slumped over 20% in premarket reading after Elon Musk said on Friday his $44 billion deal to take the company private is "temporarily on hold," while the two sides wrangle over the extent of fake and spam accounts on the social media network.
Affirm (NASDAQ:AFRM) stock surged over 30% after the buy-now-pay-later company beat expectations on both the top and bottom line, while Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) stock gained over 22% after a regulatory filing said Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has acquired a 7.6% stake in the retail brokerage.
The economic data calendar is light Friday, but investors will study the release of May’s Michigan consumer sentiment reading, at 10 AM ET (1400 GMT), which is expected to show a slight deterioration of confidence as households battle rising food and gasoline prices.
Oil prices rose Friday, but still looked set to register their first weekly loss in three as concerns about faltering global demand seemingly outweighed the prospect of a European Union ban on Russian oil tightening supply.
The number of U.S. oil rigs by Baker Hughes and CFTC positioning data are scheduled for release later in the session, rounding off the week.
By 7 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 1.9% higher at $108.17 a barrel, on course to fall around 2% this week, while the Brent contract rose 1.9% to $109.46, set to drop nearly 3% this week.
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.4% to $1,817.30/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 1.0384.