U.S. equity futures were trading lower early Friday after Wall Street extended a rally into a third day and oil prices pushed higher, surpassing $105 per barrel.
The major futures indexes suggested a decline of 0.6% when trading begins on Wall Street.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures climbed 77 cents or 0.8%, to $103.81 a barrel, adding to an 8% jump on Thursday.
Brent crude futures gained 65 cents, or 0.7%, to $107.49 a barrel, after surging nearly 9% on Thursday in the largest percentage gain since mid-2020.
Prices have been careening on doubts over both supplies of and demand for oil. After briefly topping $130 early last week, a barrel of U.S. crude fell to nearly $94 a barrel on Wednesday.
But reports of a sale of Russian crude oil to India and apparent setbacks in peace talks between Ukraine and Russia have renewed concern over possible shortfalls in supplies.
Some housing data to wrap up a busy week of economic report.
Keep an eye out for existing home sales for the month of February. The National Association of Realtors is expected to say that sales of previously owned homes fell 6.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.1 million units. That would be down from a 1-year high of 6.5 million in January amid rising prices and record-low inventory.
At the same time, we’ll get the Conference Board’s Leading Economic index, also for February. Watch for a 0.3% increase from the prior month.
Bitcoin traded around $40,000.
In Europe, London’s FTSE was off 0.2%, Germany’s DAX declined 0.6% and France’s CAC fell 0.6%.
In Asia, the Bank of Japan opted to keep its monetary policy unchanged, with its benchmark interest rate at minus 0.1%.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index rose 0.7%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was off 0.4% and China’s Shanghai Composite index added 1.1%.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 climbed 1.2% on Thursday, closing at 4,411.67, after surging more than 2% in each of the prior two days for its best back-to-back performance in nearly two years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.2% to 34,480.76. The Nasdaq rose 1.3% to 13,614.78. The tech-heavy index is on pace for its biggest weekly gain in more than a year.
A wave of better-than-expected reports on the U.S. economy Thursday may also have helped markets. Fewer workers applied for unemployment claims last week, and builders broke ground on more homes last month than economists expected.
In other trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.17% from 2.20% late Thursday.
