LONDON: Wall Street could register a fourth-straight session of gains on Friday, with futures tilting higher as investors continued to cheer a dovish tone set by the Federal Reserve earlier in the week.
However, bubble worries surfaced in Asia, where Chinese stocks tumbled, dropping into correction territory, while Greece jitters stayed in the spotlight in Europe.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average YMU5, +0.13% inched up 24 points to 18,067, while those for the S&P 500 index ESU5, +0.07% added 2.55 points to 2,117.25. Futures for the Nasdaq-100 index NQU5, +0.12% inched up 6.75 points to 4,537.
Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said U.S. stocks continued to be propped up by relief that the Fed will only hike interest rates very gradually, which was a key takeaway from the central bank’s news conference on Wednesday.
“People accept now that interest rates are going to rise, but focus more on how fast are they going to rise. The fact that the Fed said it’s going to be a slower pace of rate hikes is seen as dovish and that’s really helping the market and carries through to the end of the week,” he said.
