Futures muted after S&P 500, Dow hit record closing highs

[April 16, 2021]  By Shivani Kumaresan

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures were subdued on Friday after the S&P 500 and the Dow closed at record highs in the previous session, while investors geared up for Morgan Stanley to wrap up quarterly earnings reports from the big U.S. banks.

Wall Street's main indexes have bounced this month as solid economic data as well as the Federal Reserve's pledge to keep interest rates low despite higher inflation boosted demand, particularly for richly valued technology stocks.

The benchmark S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow are on course for their fourth straight week of gains, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq is less than a percent below its own all-time peak.

Tech behemoths Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Tesla Inc Microsoft Corp, which led Wall Street's recovery last year from the coronavirus-fueled crash, edged down in premarket trading after leading gains in the previous session.

At 6:29 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 55 points, or 0.16%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 3 points, or 0.07%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 17.5 points, or 0.12%.

With the first-quarter corporate earnings season under way, focus will be on results from Morgan Stanley after bumper earnings earlier this week from JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, and Bank of America that reinforced hopes of a swift economic rebound.

Shares of the banks rose between 0.4% and 0.7% in premarket trading.

Oil companies, mainly Chevron Corp, Marathon Petroleum, Exxon Mobil Corp and Occidental Petroleum, gained between 0.3% and 1.1% as oil prices rose. [O/R]

(Reporting by Shivani Kumaresan in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

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