U.S. stock-index futures fell late Sunday, suggesting losses Monday, as the projected victory of a far-right party in Italy added to uncertainties about rising interest rates and recession fears.
After falling nearly 200 points earlier in the session, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00, -0.77% were down about 150 points, or 0.5%, around midnight Eastern, while S&P 500 futures ES00, -0.85% and Nasdaq-100 futures NQ00, -0.76% were also about 0.5% lower in choppy trading.
Investors may have been reassured by the moderate tone taken by far-right Italian leader Giorgia Meloni on Sunday night, after partial national election results showed her party as the likely winner.
The U.S. Dollar Index DXY, 0.53% rose 0.7% as the greenback continued recent gains against the euro USDEUR, 0.56% and British pound USDGBP, 0.74%, which fell to a record low against the dollar.
Wall Street suffered another week of losses Friday in the wake of the Fed’s latest jumbo rate hike.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.62% fell 486.27 points, or 1.6%, to close at 29,590.41, while the S&P 500 SPX, -1.72% dropped 64.76 points, or 1.7%, to finish at 3,693.23 and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, +2.62% sank 198.88 points, or 1.8%, to end at 10,867.93.
For the week, the Dow dropped 4% while the S&P 500 slid 4.6% and the Nasdaq tumbled 5.1%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Investors are worried about the ability of the Fed to pull off a so-called “soft landing” — raising interest rates enough to slow growth but not enough to cause a recession.
“We need a slowdown,” Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said in an interview Sunday. But Bostic said he was optimistic that a soft landing can be achieved, and for “the economy to absorb our actions and slow in a relatively orderly way.”