Traders operate on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on August 3, 2021.
Michael Nagel | Bloomberg | Getty Images
US stock futures opened slightly higher Tuesday night after the S&P 500 posted a seven-month winning streak in August.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 45 points, or 0.13%. The futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose 0.17% and 0.11%, respectively.
In regular trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 39.11 points, or 0.11%, to close at 35,360.73. The S&P 500 was down 0.13% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.04%.
The most important averages all finished higher in August. The S&P 500 rose 2.9% for the month, up for the seventh month in a row. The Nasdaq Composite was up roughly 4% and while the Dow lagged it was still up 1.2%.
Some strategists are on the lookout for a correction in September as stocks haven’t seen a significant correction since last October combined with the highly anticipated September Federal Reserve Bank meeting and ongoing concerns over the Delta-Covid variant.
“While that bull market laughed at almost all of the worrying signs in 2021, let’s not forget that September is historically the worst month of the year for stocks,” said Ryan Detrick, LPL Financial’s chief market strategist. “Even last year, in the face of a huge rally from the March 2020 lows, we saw a correction of nearly 10% in mid-September.”
He added that any weakness could be short-term and could be in the 5-8% range.
“This bull market is alive and well and we would see any potential weakness as an opportunity,” he said.
Investors are focusing on August US payroll data due to be released later this week for a glimpse into the possible path of Fed monetary policy. Dow Jones economists estimate that 750,000 jobs were created in August and the unemployment rate has fallen to 5.2%.
Campbell Soup is expected to report on the earnings before the bell Wednesday. Brown-Forman will report after the bell.