Stock futures were struggling for direction on Wednesday, while both gold and silver were clawing back some of their losses from the previous session’s dramatic selloff.
Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 7 points, effectively trading flat. S&P 500 futures were up 0.1%, and contracts tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 slid 0.1%.
The most actively traded gold contract rose 1.1% to $4,153 an ounce, and silver climbed 1.3% to $48.28 an ounce. The precious metals stole the spotlight from the three major indexes on Tuesday, plummeting as investors opted to take profit after a stellar recent run.
“To be honest, there wasn’t a single catalyst that sparked the declines,” Deutsche Bank macro strategist Henry Allen said. “In many respects, it looked like a classic pullback after a relentless bull run over recent weeks.”
The choppy trade in stock futures came as investors tried to make sense of another batch of earnings reports. Regional lender Western Alliance posted better-than-expected profit and revenue, easing fears about bad loans. Netflix missed Wall Street’s estimates, but the video streamer blamed that on a dispute with Brazilian tax authorities, rather than a slowdown in subscriptions that could rattle the broader market.
Quarterly results are pretty much all investors have to go off right now, with most economic data releases suspended due to the ongoing government shutdown. The Senate is set to hold a vote on extending funding Wednesday, although there’s little sign the impasse will end soon.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note slipped 1 basis point to 3.97%. The dollar was flat against a weighted basket of its peers, and Bitcoin edged up 0.1% to $108,228.
