Friday, March 29, 2024
Homeus marketsUS futures point to lower open as investors eye health-care reform, German...

US futures point to lower open as investors eye health-care reform, German election result

  • Angela Merkel's conservative bloc will be the largest party in the next German parliament.
  • In Asia, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced snap elections for next month.
  • On the data front, Dallas Fed manufacturing data is due at 10:30 a.m. ET and Red Hat is due to release a new earnings report after the market close.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Monday as investors digested elections in Germany and eyed new regulations on health care in the U.S.

Angela Merkel's conservative bloc will be the largest party in the next German parliament, but provisional election results point to a worse-than-expected majority for the German chancellor.

Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister-party the Christian Social Union (CSU) won 33 percent of the vote. It would make them the largest parliamentary group, but that is down from 41.5 percent in the last election in 2013 and lower than recent polling. It is also their worst result since 1949, according to Reuters.

The euro weakened to trade near $1.187. The German 10-year bund yield fell to 0.41 percent.

European stocks were marginally higher on Monday morning as investors digested the results. The nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) won parliamentary seats for the first time.

In Asia, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced snap elections for next month and also ordered his cabinet to compile new economic stimulus measures in a package worth around 2 trillion yen ($17.80 billion).

The Nikkei 225 rose half a percent, while the Hang Seng fell more than 1 percent.

U.S. stocks closed narrowly mixed Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 posting a second straight week of gains.

New York Fed President Bill Dudley said Monday morning the Fed is on track to gradually raise interest rates, since factors depressing inflation are "fading". U.S. economic fundamentals are also sound, said Dudley, vice chairman of the Fed's rate-setting committee.

Treasury yields edged off session lows, with the U.S. 2-year yield around 1.44 percent and the 10-year yield near 2.25 percent.

Oil prices rose to multi-month highs.

President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday evening that Alaska, Arizona, Maine and Kentucky would be big winners under the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. It would appear that the president was referring to funding revisions in the September 24 draft of the bill, a copy of which was obtained by CNBC. The Senate Finance Committee will convene a hearing on Monday to learn more about the Graham-Cassidy proposal.

Elsewhere, Trump is expected to sign a presidential order on Monday expanding apprenticeships in the U.S. On Sunday, the White House also slapped new travel restrictions on citizens from North Korea, Venezuela and Chad, expanding to eight the list of countries covered by his original travel bans that have been derided by critics and challenged in court.

On the data front, Dallas Fed manufacturing data is due at 10:30 a.m. ET and Red Hat is due to report fresh earnings after the market close.

—Reuters and CNBC's Bertha Coombs contributed to this report.

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