MW: U.S. stock futures point to third rise in succession
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures pointed to a third straight rise on the dawn of third-quarter earnings season, as traders continued to exit the greenback and buy securities from gold to stocks.
S&P 500 futures rose 4.6 points to 1,053.20 and Nasdaq 100 futures added 7 points to 1,707.70. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 37 points.
A slumping dollar as Australia's central bank hiked interest rates led investors to other assets on Tuesday, with gold surging and stocks climbing as well, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 131 points, the Nasdaq Composite increased 35 points and the S&P 500 rose 14 points.
Gold's strength continued on Wednesday, with futures hitting a fresh record at as high as $1,049.70 an ounce.
The dollar was weaker vs. the Japanese yen, sliding 0.6% to 88.21 yen.
"The equities rally has matured and headline gains are more than explained by dollar weakness," said Lena Komileva, head of G7 market economics at Tullett Prebon, in a note to clients.
"Ongoing talk about dollar revenue diversification in the Middle East is certainly not providing support for current valuations and the dollar's inability to recover much off the back of official denials of the story yesterday suggests that dollar asset re-pricing will remain a theme for the next two quarters at least."
She said the implication is this month's equity gains are speculative rather than an analysis of investment returns.
The moves in the market comes ahead of third-quarter earnings season, due to kick off Wednesday after the close of action when Alcoa (AA 13.89, +0.47, +3.50%) reports results.
Coca-Cola (KO 54.32, +0.52, +0.97%) may be another Dow industrials component in the spotlight as Deutsche Bank upped the beverage maker to buy.
Costco Wholesale (COST 57.93, +1.05, +1.85%) reported a 6% profit fall in the August-ending quarter and said September same-store sales rose 1%.
Banco Santander (STD 16.41, +0.48, +3.01%) priced its Brazilian IPO at 23.5 Brazilian reais per unit, valuing the bank at 34.15 billion euros ($50 billion) and raising 1.4 billion euros for the Spanish lender.
Ahead of weekly energy inventories, crude futures rose 26 cents to $71.14 a barrel.
Resource stocks led markets overseas, with the Nikkei 225 rising 1.1% in Tokyo and the FTSE 100 edging up 0.1% in London after a strong advance on Tuesday.
