By Oliver Gray
Investing.com - U.S. stock futures were mixed in early APAC deals on Monday after significant declines in the previous week, with market participants continuing to grapple with an uptick of coronavirus infection rates and an upcoming shift in the Federal Reserve’s easy monetary settings as policymakers last week announced a more aggressive plan to wind down its asset purchases, and said that it will potentially raise interest rates three times next year.
During Friday’s session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 532.2 points or 1.48% lower at 35365.45, the S&P 500 lost 48.01 points or 1.03% to 4620.65 and the NASDAQ Composite lost 10.75 points or 0.07% to 15169.68. For the week, the Dow slipped 1.7%, S&P 500 declined 1.9% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 3% week as investors dumped growth stocks on the prospect of higher interest rates.
Futures on the Dow Jones 30 dipped 0.33%. S&P 500 Futures fell 0.28% and Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed 0.06%.
Among stocks, major technology names dragged on Friday, with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) down 0.34%, Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) losing 0.54%, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) down 1.41% and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) falling 2.06%. Social media stocks were also lower as Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) fell 0.33% and 0.14% respectively.
EV manufacturers were mixed as Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) added 0.61%, Lucid Group Inc (NASDAQ:LCID) eased 0.1% and Rivian Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:RIVN) plummeted 10.26%.
On the bond markets, United States 10-Year yields were near 2-week lows of 1.405%.
Meantime, the Omicron coronavirus variant is raging across the world as the winter holiday season approaches. The World Health Organization noted on Saturday that the new strain has been found through testing in 43 out of 50 U.S. states and around 90 countries, with the number of cases doubling in 1.5 to 3 days in areas with community transmission, .