Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., June 25, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Stock futures ticked higher early Thursday as the S&P 500 remains within striking distance of its all-time high.
S&P 500 futures rose 0.21%, and the Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.31%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 72 points, or 0.17%.
The moves come after the S&P 500 finished Wednesday’s session flat, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 106.59 points, or about 0.3%. The three indexes are still on pace for a positive week, and the S&P 500 remains less than 1% from its February record.
But some on Wall Street are skeptical that the recent market momentum will carry on.
“The various macro factors that I’m looking at seem to suggest that there’s no way this situation can continue,” Komal Sri-Kumar, president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, said on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” Wednesday, citing the Israel-Iran conflict as well as President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the impact of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” on the fiscal deficit.
Tensions in the Middle East seemed to be calming after Trump said Tuesday that a ceasefire between Israel and Iran was in effect. Though the president accused both countries of violating the agreement, saying he’s “not happy” with either of them, the deal has since appeared to hold. The U.S. is planning to meet with Iran next week.
Investors are also gearing up for May’s personal consumption expenditures price index reading, due out Friday morning. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that its preferred inflation measure is likely to rise to 2.3%, while the core measure that excludes food and energy is expected to tick up to 2.6%. That’s up from the headline reading of 2.1% and 2.5% for the core in April. However, Powell still stressed that the central bank is committed to keeping inflation under control in the face of “uncertain” effects of Trump’s tariffs on the economy.
“You’re going to have a pickup in the rate of inflation … and I think that is going to be reflected during the second half of this year, with yields going up,” Sri-Kumar continued. “That is going to be negative for [the] Nasdaq in particular, and I think [the] S&P is not going to be free from being attacked by that either.”
Elsewhere on the economic front, investors are eyeing weekly jobless claims data, which is slated for release at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.
Wall Street is also looking ahead to other earnings results. Walgreens is set to report before the bell Thursday, and Nike is scheduled for release after the closing bell.
