(Reuters) – Nasdaq futures led Wall Street’s gains on Monday and were set to start the first trading day of June on a positive note as large-cap stocks rose, recovering slightly from Friday’s close in the red.
Megacap stocks, including Apple (NASDAQ:), Meta (NASDAQ:) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:), were up 0.2% to 0.4% in premarket trading, also helped by a slight decline in US Treasury yields. [MKTS/GLOB]
Shares of artificial intelligence leader Nvidia (NASDAQ:) jumped 2.9%. CEO Jensen Huang said on Sunday that the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence chip platform will be deployed in 2026.
The technology sector closed slightly lower on Friday as investors rebalanced their portfolios at the end of the month.
However, even though the index and Nasdaq broke their five-week winning streak on Friday, all three major Wall Street indexes ended May with strong gains.
The S&P 500 rose 4.8%, the Dow rose 2.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose nearly 7% last month as strong earnings and hopes of monetary easing buoyed Wall Street’s biggest stocks.
Investors increased bets on a September interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve on Friday, according to the FedWatch CME tool, after inflation pointed to a potential cooling in price pressures as measured by the personal consumer spending price index.
“Strong earnings and prospects for rate cuts could support risk sentiment,” said analysts at Generali (BIT:) Investments.
“However, the strong equity rally, declining volatility and increased investor exposure to risk assets reflect a very high degree of market optimism, keeping the risk of temporary setbacks high.”
Key economic data this week, including surveys of the manufacturing and services sectors, factory orders and Friday’s non-farm payrolls report, will provide further signals on the health of the US economy.
The Institute for Supply Management’s May Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index will be released later in the day.
At 5:47 a.m. ET, they were down 44 points, or 0.11%, up 5.25 points, or 0.10%, and up 66.25 points, or 0.36%.
Among individual investors, shares of GameStop (NYSE:) soared 69.1% after Reddit posted a post over the weekend from stock influencer Keith Gill, aka “Growling Kitty,” about a $116 million bet on the gaming retailer.
Other so-called meme stocks such as AMC and Tupperware (NYSE:) rose 25.9% and 8.6%, while retail-focused brokerage Robinhood (NASDAQ:) rose 2.8%. .
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:) shares rose 1.4% after the company unveiled its latest artificial intelligence processors at an industry event and detailed plans to take on rival Nvidia.
Paramount Global shares rose 5.5% after it was reported Sunday that Skydance Media had cut its buyout offer to $15 per share.