(Reuters): Wall Street was on track to open higher on Wednesday as futures tied to the S&P 500 hit all-time highs and investors focused on upcoming economic data as well as remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
U.S. private payrolls increased at a moderate pace in November, the ADP National Employment Report showed, with private payrolls rising by 146,000 jobs after advancing by a downwardly revised 184,000 in October.
“There’s been a lot of noise for job figures due to distortions in the economy and the correlation between the ADP and the nonfarm payrolls print, which is the really important one for the outlook and for Fed policy,” said Zachary Hill, head of portfolio management at Horizon Investments.
“I don’t really think the markets are going be focusing on today’s ADP report.”
The data comes before the highly anticipated November monthly employment report, due on Friday.
U.S. central bank officials said on Tuesday they still believe inflation is heading down to their 2% target. While most signaled support for further interest-rate cuts, none pushed strongly for or against another reduction in borrowing costs at the Fed’s meeting in two weeks.
Powell’s comments are due later in the day, while the Beige Book, the central bank’s U.S. economic activity survey, is scheduled for release at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin is also scheduled to speak on the day.
November non-manufacturing activity surveys from S&P Global and the Institute for Supply Management are due shortly after markets open.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted record closing highs on Tuesday, as tech-related stocks continued to rise during the turbulent session.
U.S. stocks had a solid November after President-elect Donald Trump recaptured the White House in the Nov. 5 election and his Republican Party swept both houses of Congress.
The benchmark S&P 500 is up almost 27% so far this year, significantly outperforming bourses in Europe, Japan and mainland China.
At 08:28 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 173 points, or 0.39%, S&P 500 E-minis rose 17.75 points, or 0.29%, hitting a record high, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 141.5 points, or 0.66%.
Most megacaps and growth stocks were broadly higher in premarket trading, with Amazon.com and Nvidia leading gains with a 1.2% rise each.
Dollar Tree added 3.3% after the discount store operator beat third-quarter sales estimates, while drugmaker Eli Lilly was up 1.4% after its weight-loss drug Zepbound topped rival Wegovy in a head-to-head study.
Salesforce jumped 12% after the enterprise cloud company beat Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue and raised the lower end of its annual revenue forecast.
Marvell Technology advanced 12.8% after the chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue above analyst estimates, while digital identity verification firm Okta soared 13.3% after reporting third-quarter profit versus a year-ago loss.
