U.S. stock-index futures edged slightly higher, in lightly traded action, Monday evening, coming off a slump for stocks in the regular session, on the back of a historic crash in crude prices and expectations for the weakest year-over-year earnings since 2009. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average YMM20, 0.37% were up 37 points, or 0.2%, at 23,519, those for the S&P 500 index ESM20, 0.50% picked up 6.75 points, or 0.2%, at 2,812.50, while Nasdaq-100 futures NQM20, 0.40% climbed 29 points, or 0.3%, at 8,721.50. The moves for the market came about two hours after Dow-component International Business Machines Corp. IBM, +0.24% reported after Monday’s close that revenue returned to a decline in the first quarter, amid the spread of COVID-19, even as Red Hat sales boosted its cloud business, and said it was pulling its annual forecast. The tech giant reported first-quarter net income of $1.18 billion, or $1.31 a share, compared with $1.59 billion, or $1.78 a share, in the year-ago period. Shares of the company were down more than 3% in after-hours trade. U.S. stocks finished near session lows in regular trade as investors watched oil futures CL.1, +104.67% crash, overshadowing optimism about plans for a staggered easing of global lockdowns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Dow DJIA, -2.44% fell 592.05 points, or 2.4%, to 23,650.44. The S&P 500 index SPX, -1.78% declined 51.40 points, or 1.8%, to 2,823.16. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -1.03% lost 89.41 points, or 1%, to 8,560.73. Results this year for the first-quarter are on track to decline 14.5% from a year ago, according to John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet, which would mark the biggest decline since the 15.7% plunge in the third quarter of 2009.
Originally Published on MarketWatch
