© Reuters
By Peter Nurse
Investing.com — U.S. stocks are seen opening slightly higher Friday, rallying into the long weekend, helped by a reassessment of the Federal Reserve’s tightening bias as well as some strong retail sector earnings.
At 7 AM ET (1100 GMT), the contract was up 55 points, or 0.2%, traded 14 points, or 0.3%, higher and climbed 70 points, or 0.6%.
The main equity indices on Wall Street posted strong gains Thursday, with the blue-chip closing over 500 points, or 1.6%, higher, while the broad-based gaining 2% and the tech-heavy rising 2.7%.
These averages are on track to snap long losing streaks ahead of the Memorial Day holiday, with the Dow and S&P 500 both over 4% higher for the week and the Nasdaq Composite up 3.4% on the week.
Helping the better tone this week has been the take-away from the of the last Federal Reserve meeting, which indicated that the central bank could slow down its tightening if it sees signs inflation is on a downward trend.
This puts the spotlight on the release of the , at 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT), which is the Fed’s preferred measure of inflationary trends. This is expected to fall to 4.9% on an annualized basis in April, from 5.2% the previous month.
A batch of strong earnings from the retail sector has also boosted market sentiment this week, with the likes of (NYSE:), (NYSE:), (NASDAQ:) and (NYSE:) all posting healthy gains.
Retail earnings continue Friday, with Big Lots (NYSE:) due to report, but there will also be attention on Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:), which better-than-expected quarterly results after the close Thursday, and (NYSE:), which slashed its full-year profit guidance.
Workday (NASDAQ:) will also be in focus after missing forecasts late on Thursday and giving disappointing guidance.
Oil prices edged lower Friday, consolidating around a two-month high on expected demand growth at the start of the summer driving season in the United States.
Also propping up the market is the continued expectation that the European Commission will eventually obtain the unanimous support of all 27 bloc member states for its proposed new sanctions against Russia, despite Hungary’s opposition to date.
By 7 AM ET, futures traded 0.4% lower at $113.67 a barrel, after gaining 3.4% during the previous session, while the contract traded 0.4% lower at $113.70, after a gain of 2.7% on Thursday.
Additionally, rose 0.4% to $1,855.51/oz, while traded 0.2% lower at 1.0699.
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