U.S. equity futures were trending lower ahead of the release of earnings reports from the country’s largest retailers beginning Monday.
The week ahead will see a flurry of reports from the retail industry, including from Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Macy’s, Target, and TJX Brands. The companies reporting their January-March results next week also include three Dow members: Walmart and Home Depot on Tuesday, and Cisco Systems on Wednesday.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose Friday but ended the week down 1.4%.
Wall Street’s gain Friday was led by tech stocks. Retailers, banks and industrial stocks also rose.
The S&P 500 rose 1.5% to 4,173.85. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.1% to 34,382.13, ending down 1.1% for the week. The Nasdaq advanced 2.3% to 13,429.98 for a weekly loss of 2.3%.
That followed three days of heavy selling driven by investor worries about a possible rise in U.S. inflation. The major indexes had hit all-time highs the previous week. However, Wall Street turned in its biggest weekly decline in three months last week.
Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet all rose 1% or more.
Government data Friday showed U.S. retail spending held steady in April at the previous month’s level, but that was below forecasts of a 1% increase over March.
