U.S. Stock Market prediction for Thursday, October 1: Check Wall Street sectors, key factors that will drive S&P 500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, Russell 2000

Wall Street investors are eagerly waiting for a positive beginning for the month of October but U.S. Stock Market futures were mixed. S&P 500 futures slipped 0.25 per cent, Dow fell 0.86 per cent, Nasdaq was up by 0.24 per cent, and Russell 2000 was low by 0.39 per cent in the pre-market trading. The S&P 500 and the Dow lost ground on the week, while the Nasdaq advanced. For the quarter, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted gains, but the Dow ended the July-September period lower.

Investors have closed the book on a tumultuous month and quarter, and markets have emerged intact. Tech, communication services and software/services were clear outperformers; megacaps, led by Alphabet and Apple, provided upside muscle.

Developments in the Middle East, energy market movement, US benchmark Treasury yields are some of the factors that will have the most impact on the NYSE and Nasdaq on October 1. On Wednesday, S&P 500 fell 19.30 points to 7,651.54. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 443.87 to 50,906.05, and the Nasdaq composite added 63.52 to 26,861.06.


Stocks turned lower after data reports suggested the U.S. economy was even stronger during the spring than earlier thought. That helped yields remain high in the bond market, which in turn kept up the pressure weighing on stocks and all financial markets.

Shorter-term Treasury yields fell as traders pared bets that the Fed will raise its main interest rate next month to get inflation further under control. They now see just a 37 per cent chance of that, down from the coin flip’s chance seen a day earlier, according to data from CME Group. That helped the yield on the two-year Treasury briefly fall toward 4.83 per cent before it pulled back to 4.89 per cent, where it was late Tuesday.

But longer-term yields rose in the bond market. That’s in part because worries about high inflation are just one of the reasons longer-term yields have jumped in the United States and around the world.

The 10-year Treasury, which is the centerpiece of the bond market, drop as low as 5.20 per cent in the morning before rising to 5.29 per cent. That’s up from 5.26 per cent late Tuesday, and it’s back to where it was more than two decades ago in 2002. The 30-year Treasury yield, which takes into account expectations for inflation and economic growth many years down the line, climbed to 5.64 per cent from 5.59 per cent late Tuesday.