A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on March 24, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
U.S. stock futures were little changed early Wednesday after the S&P 500 posted a marginal gain, marking its third positive session in a row.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were flat. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were also little changed.
GameStop jumped 7% in Tuesday’s extended trading hours after announcing that its board unanimously approved a plan to invest corporate cash into bitcoin, following in the footsteps of a move by MicroStrategy.
Earlier on Tuesday, the S&P 500 posted a slim gain, rising 0.16%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 4.18 points, or 0.01%, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.46%. It was the third straight positive session for the three major averages.
Stocks closed slightly higher despite the release of consumer confidence data on Tuesday showing that U.S. consumers’ near-term outlook on income, business and job prospects dropped to their lowest reading in 12 years. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that a recession is on the horizon, according to Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group.
“The soft data looks terrible. If you look at the soft data, you’d say we’re in a recession right now — especially after today’s consumer confidence report — but it’s a matter of actions speaking louder than words. When you look at the hard data, we’re not seeing nearly the collapse that we’re seeing in the soft data,” he said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Tuesday.
“Over the last week, you’ve seen housing starts, building permits, industrial production, capacity utilization, new home sales today were all either in line with or better than expected,” Hickey added. “So that suggests that, at this point, we haven’t seen that transfer from not feeling good to actually not being good.”
Chewy, Dollar Tree, Cintas and Paychex will report earnings on Wednesday. Traders will also watch out for February’s preliminary durable goods orders.