By Mike Murphy
U.S. stock-market futures advanced late Sunday, after Wall Street ended last week with its worst session since April.
After see-sawing between slight gains and losses Sunday evening, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM00) were last up about 120 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures (ES00) and Nasdaq-100 futures (NQ00) also rose about 0.3%.
The gains took hold after President Donald Trump told reporters he plans to name a new Federal Reserve governor this week, after Adriana Kugler stepped down Friday, as well as a new leader of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after he fired Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday following worse-than-expected jobs data. The moves could help Trump solidify his economic agenda.
Read more: Trump’s firing of BLS commissioner decried as ‘groundless’ and ‘giving way to authoritarianism’
Stocks fell sharply Friday as investors reacted to the imposition of the Trump administration’s stiff tariff regimen and the weaker jobs report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA fell 542.40 points, or 1.2%, to close at 43,588.58, while the S&P 500 SPX slumped 101.38 points, or 1.6%, to end at 6,238.01 and the Nasdaq Composite COMP dropped 472.32 points, or 2.2%, to close at 20,650.13. The Dow lost 2.9% on the week, while the S&P 500 fell 2.4 and the Nasdaq declined 2.2%.
Friday’s drop was the biggest for the S&P 500 since April 21, and came after a July that saw 10 record-high closes, while never moving more than 1% in either direction in a given day.
Read more: A record-setting July for stocks gave way to rough start to August-investors may not be ready for what comes next
Meanwhile, gold (GC00) inched higher Sunday, bitcoin (BTCUSD) traded above the $114,000 level, and crude oil prices (CLU25) (BRNV25) were down about 0.4%.
On Saturday, eight members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, or OPEC+, agreed to boost production for the fifth straight month. The group, led by Saudi Arabia, will increase output by 547,000 barrels a day in September. That’s down slightly from the 548,000 barrels-a-day increase announced in July for August production.
West Texas crude prices (CL.1) have largely remained under $70 a barrel since the increases were announced in April, and oil prices are down around 7% year to date.
It’s part of a plan to unwind voluntary supply cuts from 2023. The September output hike should be the final step in getting crude production back up to speed a year earlier than originally planned. The move also serves as a punishment for countries that have been over-producing oil, such as Iraq and Kazakhstan, and an opportunity for oil-producing nations like Saudi Arabia to win back market share from U.S. shale drillers as prices fall. OPEC+ will next meet Sept. 7, and it’s unclear it they’ll continue to boost output, pause, or even reverse course and cut production.
“OPEC+ just slammed the final page shut on its two-year production-cut playbook – but instead of delivering a tidy resolution, they’ve led crude traders straight to a fork in the pipeline,” Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, wrote in a Sunday note, noting that “the fate of an additional 1.66 million barrels per day, still held off-market until at least 2026, remains a mystery.”
From July: Can OPEC+ flood the world with crude? It’s harder than oil traders think.
Investors will also be keeping an eye on corporate earnings this week, with quarterly reports expected from the Walt Disney Co. (DIS), Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (WBD), McDonald’s Corp. (MCD), Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) and Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR).
Read more: It’s a pivotal week for earnings-what they reveal about tariffs and the resilience of U.S. consumers
-Mike Murphy
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08-03-25 2241ET
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