Wall Street was set to open slightly higher on the first trading day of the month on Monday as investors await manufacturing data to further assess the health of the world’s largest economy.
Investors have been keeping a sharp eye on data after the U.S. Federal Reserve held monetary policy steady last week, and gave no signals that it was in a hurry to tighten further.
Economists polled by Reuters expect two increases this year but futures prices show traders do not expect rates to rise until late 2016, according to CME Group’s FedWatch.
Wall Street closed lower on Friday, with U.S. stocks marking their largest weekly drop in more than two months as corporate earnings continued to disappoint.
“I suspect for some stability to come in after the selloff in the last couple of days,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Louisville, Kentucky-based Janlyn Capital.
“Everyone is looking for doom and gloom, and we may get it at some point, but for the moment, it appears that there is a predisposition to buying.”
Oil prices retreated from the year’s highs as rising production in the Middle East outweighed a decline the United States.
