U.S. stock futures were swinging between gains and losses on Tuesday after a mixed session on Monday. Futures of major benchmark indices were mixed in premarket trading.
President Donald Trump‘s “Liberation Day”, the term he’s used for April 2nd, the day of incoming reciprocal tariffs, preceded a drop in stock prices.
S&P 500 declined by 4.59% for the first quarter of 2025, whereas the Nasdaq 100 was down over 10%.
With the 10-year Treasury yield at 4.18% and the two-year at 3.87%, the CME Group’s FedWatch tool shows markets pricing in an 86.8% likelihood of the Federal Reserve maintaining current interest rates through its May meeting.
Futures
Change (+/-)
Nasdaq 100
0.03%
S&P 500
-0.11%
Dow Jones
-0.21%
Russell 2000
-0.15%
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, were mixed in premarket on Tuesday. The SPY was down 0.17% to $558.43, while the QQQ advanced 0.071% to $469.00, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Cues From Last Session:
Consumer staples, financials, and utilities led the S&P 500 gains on Monday, while consumer discretionary stocks declined.
Overall, U.S. stocks were mixed; the Dow rose over 400 points amidst Trump’s tariff concerns, but the Nasdaq fell due to drops in Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA).
March saw significant declines for major indices, with the S&P 500 down 5.8%, the Nasdaq 8.2%, and the Dow 4.2%. Quarterly, the Nasdaq fell 10.4%, and the Dow lost 1.3%.
Economic data showed a rise in the Chicago PMI but a decline in the Dallas Fed’s manufacturing index.
Index
Performance (+/-)
Value
Nasdaq Composite
-0.14%
17,299.29
S&P 500
0.55%
5,611.85
Dow Jones
1.00%
42,001.76
Russell 2000
-0.56%
2,011.91
Insights From Analysts:
After the S&P 500 index declined 4.59% in the first quarter, marking its largest quarterly underperformance against global markets in 37 years, Ryan Detrick, the chief market strategist at Carson Research, cited historical data in his latest X post and stated that “April does better after a weak Q1.”
The average return in April stood at 3.1% after a poor first quarter, however, the average return for the full year after a bad first quarter stood at just 6.6%.