Stock Futures Tick Lower Ahead of GDP Data; S&P 500 Nears All-Time High; Gold Hits Record $4,500

Stock futures edged lower ahead of delayed third-quarter GDP figures Tuesday, with major equities indexes looking for a fourth consecutive session of gains.

Nasdaq 100 futures and those affiliated with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average all were about 0.1% lower.

Yesterday, the benchmark S&P 500, tech-heavy Nasdaq, and blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up a respective 0.6%, 0.5%, and 0.5%, with the S&P 500 coming up 0.2% shy of its all-time closing high. It was the indexes’ third straight session of gains, with tech shares continuing their advance after a strong end to last week. 

Shares of Micron Technology (MU), Oracle (ORCL), and Nvidia (NVDA) finished up a respective 4%, 3.2%, and 1.5% to begin the holiday-shortened week. The three stocks ticked lower in premarket trading Tuesday.

The long-delayed GDP report is expected to show that the economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.2% in the third quarter, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. That would represent a slowdown from the 3.8% growth in the second quarter, but be higher than the average of 2.6% since the third quarter of 2021.

Ahead of the Q3 GDP reading, the 10-year Treasury yield, which influences interest rates on a variety of commercial and consumer loans, slipped to 4.15% from Monday’s close of above 4.16%.

In addition to the July-September data on the U.S. economy, Tuesday will bring the report on durable goods orders for October, initially scheduled for a November release, as well as a consumer confidence reading and the Federal Reserve’s industrial production and capacity utilization data for both October and November.

Gold futures set a new all-time high for a second straight day, reaching $4,530 an ounce early Tuesday and recently trading up 1.1% to $4,515. Silver futures also set a new record high for a second consecutive session, hitting $70.15 per ounce and recently trading up 1.6% at about $69.65.

Bitcoin was trading around $87,600, down from an overnight high of about $88,900. The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of foreign currencies, fell 0.4% to 97.88. West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, edged higher to $58.10 a barrel.

Meanwhile, Tesla (TSLA) shares rose modestly before the bell after hitting a new record high of nearly $500 each yesterday; those of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) gained 4.5% following a 5% advance Monday after the Navy said it will commission a new warship to be built by the U.S. shipmaker; and U.S.-listed shares of Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk (NVO) surged about 8% after
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its Wegovy weight-loss pill.