A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on March 24, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
U.S. stock futures were little changed early Wednesday after the S&P 500 posted a marginal gain, marking its third positive session in a row.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added just 7 points. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures each slipped about 0.1%.
Stocks closed slightly higher on Tuesday despite the release of consumer confidence data on Tuesday showing that U.S. consumers’ near-term outlook on income, business and job prospects dropped to their lowest reading in 12 years. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that a recession is on the horizon, according to Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group.
“The soft data looks terrible. If you look at the soft data, you’d say we’re in a recession right now — especially after today’s consumer confidence report — but it’s a matter of actions speaking louder than words. When you look at the hard data, we’re not seeing nearly the collapse that we’re seeing in the soft data,” he told CNBC on Tuesday.
“Over the last week, you’ve seen housing starts, building permits, industrial production, capacity utilization, new home sales today were all either in line with or better than expected,” Hickey added. “So that suggests that, at this point, we haven’t seen that transfer from not feeling good to actually not being good.”
Traders are watching out for February’s report on preliminary durable goods orders due Wednesday morning.
