By Sruthi Shankar and Shashwat Chauhan
Dec 19 (Reuters) – Futures tied to the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq inched up on Friday, as technology stocks extended their rebound from a selloff earlier this week, while Nike tumbled after weak China sales weighed on its quarterly results.
Nike shares slumped 10.3% in premarket trading, after the sportswear giant reported a drop in gross margins for the second consecutive quarter and a decline in China sales for the sixth straight quarter.
The stock weighed on Dow futures, which were down 31 points, or 0.06%, by 7:10 a.m. ET.
The S&P 500 E-minis were up 8.5 points, or 0.12%, while the Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 63.75 points, or 0.24%.
U.S. stocks jumped on Thursday, led by tech gains after chipmaker Micron Technology’s strong forecasts re-ignited optimism around AI-related shares, which had come under pressure in recent weeks over lofty valuations and funding concerns.
Most chip-related stocks rose on Friday, with Nvidia last up 1.2%. Other megacap and growth stocks, including Tesla and Amazon.com, too, gained.
Investors also drew comfort from data showing U.S. consumer prices rose less than expected in November, although it was partly due to a government shutdown that delayed data collection until the second half of the month, when retailers were offering holiday season discounts. Economists expect a pickup in inflation in December.
“We think policymakers may be cautious about interpreting this report as a definitive shift in inflation trends due to the methodological uncertainties,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management.
“But we also believe this week’s data in aggregate does not prevent the Fed from moving closer to a neutral policy stance to support economic growth.”
Traders continued to bet on at least two 25-basis-point interest rate cuts next year from the Federal Reserve, according to LSEG data, while attaching a 24% chance of such a move in January.
The Fed last week cut rates by 25 bps to the 3.50%-3.75% range, but signaled borrowing costs were unlikely to fall further in the near term as policymakers await clarity on the direction of the labor market and inflation.
The University of Michigan’s final reading on consumer sentiment in December is due at 10:00 a.m. ET.
Analysts warned of higher volatility on Friday due to “triple witching,” which is the quarterly, simultaneous expiration of stock options, stock index futures and stock index options contracts.
Hurt by the tech selloff earlier in the week, the main U.S. stock indexes were on course for weekly losses, though Thursday’s rebound helped trim some of those declines.
The S&P 500 has hit multiple record highs in 2025 and is on track for a third successive yearly gain.
Generac climbed 3.2% after Wells Fargo upgraded its rating on the power equipment maker to “overweight” from “equal weight”.
Oracle jumped 4.5% after TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, signed binding agreements to hand control of the short video app’s U.S. operations to a group of investors, including the cloud computing giant.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
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