Credit: REUTERS/Brendan McDermidBy Shivani Kumaresan
April 23 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq indexes tracked a firmer open on Friday, while a fall in shares of American Express looked set to weigh on the Dow as investors awaited business activity data to gauge the pace of economic recovery.
Wall Street's main indexes sank nearly 1% in the previous session following reports of U.S. President Joe Biden planning to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, including the largest-ever increase in levies on investment gains.
"Yesterday was a knee-jerk reaction to the proposal. Right now, there's nothing definitive on the part of administration," said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth.
"The focus is still on whether or not this market is in the early stage of correction."
The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX and the blue-chip Dow .DJI are on course for weekly declines after four straight weeks of gains as the latest worries over tax hikes and a resurgence in global coronavirus cases dulled sentiment.
American Express Co AXP.N slid 4.1% after reporting a slump in credit spending and lower quarterly revenue.
Speedy vaccination rollouts and trillions in dollars of economic stimulus have helped the S&P 500 and the Dow clinch all-time highs last week, with technology stocks lagging so-called value stocks expected to outperform as the economy emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.
IHS Markit's flash reading at 9:45 a.m ET is likely to show business activity in the manufacturing and services sectors improved in April from the prior month.
At 6:35 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were up 41 points, or 0.12%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were up 9 points, or 0.22%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were up 26.5 points, or 0.19%.
With the first-quarter corporate earnings season under way, focus will be on results from tech behemoths Apple Inc AAPL.O, Microsoft Corp MSFT.O, Amazon Inc AMZN.O and Facebook Inc FB.O next week.
Honeywell International HON.N fell 1.8% in pre-market trading after it missed revenue estimates for its aerospace division, its biggest business constituent.
Cryptocurrency and blockchain-related stocks including Riot Blockchain RIOT.O and Marathon Digital MARA.O dropped 5.7% and 5.6% after bitcoin BTC=BTSP suffered hefty losses on fears that plans to raise capital gains taxes would curb investment in digital assets.
(Reporting by Shivani Kumaresan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
((Shivani.Kumaresan@thomsonreuters.com; +1 646 223 8780))
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
