Stock futures rise as market hopes post-election rally continues; Federal Reserve rate decision looms

Stock futures are rising Thursday morning as the stock market looks to extend a post-election rally that has sent major indexes to record highs.

Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 each rose 0.2% in recent trading, while futures linked to the Nasdaq gained 0.4%. Major indices reversed best one-day performances from 2022 on Wednesday following Donald Trump’s winning decision in the presidential election.

Investors’ attention today will be focused on the Federal Reserve, which is widely expected to reduced the base rate on loans by a quarter of a percentage point. The decision is due to be announced at 2:00 pm ET after the Fed’s two-day meeting.

Investors will be scrutinizing the Fed’s policy statement, as well as Chairman Jerome Powell’s post-meeting press conference, to get a sense of the central bank’s views on the health of the economy and what that means for future rate decisions. The Fed cut rates in September for the first time in four years and said it would continue to do so, but stressed that their decisions would depend on economic data.

Notable stocks on the move premarket include Qualcomm (KCOM) shares rose almost 7% after Quarterly Chip Reporter it beat Wall Street expectations and announced $15 billion in share repurchases. Arm Holdings shares (HAND) fell 5% after the chip developer released disappointing sales prospects.

Zillow Stock (Z) grew by 13% after This was reported by the real estate company strong sales growth in the third quarter, while Lyft (ELEVATOR) shares soared 24% after the ride-hailing company reported the results were better than expected and improved the prognosis.

Large-cap tech stocks were mostly higher ahead of trading, with shares of Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGLE) and metaplatforms (META) everything is moving forward. Tesla (TSLA) fell slightly after rising 15% yesterday amid optimism about what a Trump presidency could mean for the electric vehicle maker, given CEO Elon Musk’s ties to the president-elect.

The 10-year Treasury yield, which has risen in recent weeks as investors have lowered their expectations for how aggressively the Fed will cut rates, was unchanged at 4.43% this morning, hovering near its highest level since early July.

Gold futures also held steady at $2,675 an ounce after falling 3% yesterday as the US dollar strengthened following the election results. Bitcoin was trading at around $75,000 after hitting an all-time high above $76,000 on Wednesday.