The Day Ahead: Month of May to End on Upbeat Data

The S&P 500 has gained 34% from its nadir in March, and following a 1.5% advance on Thursday futures are poised to extend those gains on Friday. S&P futures are up between 6.7 points in pre-market trading, while Dow futures are 66 points higher and Nasdaq futures up nearly 15 points.

Investor confidence has been boosted by gains in overseas news, including improvement in Japan’s industrial production index and crude oil flirting with 6-month highs of $65 per barrel. In addition, data coming out Friday is expected to be positive.

At 8:30, preliminary revisions are expected to show that Q1 GDP contracted by 5.5% instead of the -6.1% originally reported. That would still be the worst contraction in a number of decades, but markets would nonetheless welcome the news.

Fifteen minutes after markets open, the ISM’s regional business barometer from Chicago is expected to report a second month of improvement. The index inched up to 40.1 in April and analysts look for a 43.5 reading in May. Any reading below 50 indicates general contraction, so the Midwest is still shedding jobs and reducing output, but the pace of contraction is slower than at the start of the year.

Earlier in the week markets surged after an optimistic consumer confidence report, and today will see the 10 am release of the Consumer Sentiment survey from Reuters & the University of Michigan. A preliminary estimate two weeks ago gave a score of 67.9, but upward revisions are expected in this final estimate for May.