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WALL STREET FUTURES HIGHER BUT CONSUMER SPENDING RAISES SOME EYEBROWS
Wall Street equity indexes were higher on Friday although they pared gains along with Treasury yields after the morning's crop of economic data releases.
U.S. consumer spending unexpectedly fell in May as the boost from the pre-emptive buying of goods like motor vehicles ahead of tariffs faded but monthly inflation increases were moderate.
U.S. Treasury yields pared gains after the data and Ian Lyngen, head of us rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets, wrote that the Treasury market "is taking direction from the consumption figures over the inflation data -- a notable tone shift that implies growth concerns are mounting."
And Oliver Pursche, senior vice president and advisor at Wealthspire Advisors, said the headline number was "a little bit more elevated than expected" but added that "the long-term trend has been down, and, given the fall in oil prices in the recent week, week and a half, I think people are expecting that number to shift back down."
"But the big takeaway is inflation is going to continue to be a concern for the Fed and be a key driver in interest rate policy, so if anything it creates a little bit more doubt in whether the Fed will lower rates as early as July," Pursche said.
And with stock futures rising this potentially bodes well for efforts by the S&P 500 .SPX and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC to return to record levels with both ending Thursday's session just slightly shy of their respective February and December record closing levels.
Here is your premarket snapshot:
(Sinéad Carew, Davide Barbuscia, Caroline Valetkevitch)
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Wall Street stock futures rise