Wall Street's main indexes were set for a slightly lower open on Thursday in light trading volumes after the Christmas holiday, as investors took stock of their portfolios and looked for a year-end boost from the so-called Santa Claus rally.
Most megacap stocks were lower, with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) dropping 0.8% in premarket trading, while Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shed 0.5%.
Yields on government bonds inched higher across the board, with the one on the benchmark 10-year note last at 4.6312%.
"Now we're at an inflection point on the Treasury yield, especially the 10-year ... any move higher and it tends to create equity market weakness and that's what I'm seeing this morning," said George Cipolloni, portfolio manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management.
At 08:33 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 148 points, or 0.34%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 21 points, or 0.34% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 88 points, or 0.42%.
Markets in Europe, London and parts of Asia were closed on Thursday.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq wrapped up Tuesday's truncated session with a third straight day of gains, lifted by megacap and growth stocks.
Gains in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Alphabet, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Nvidia, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) accounted for more than half of the S&P 500's 28.4% total return this year, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices Senior Index Analyst Howard Silverblatt.
Without the Magnificent Seven stocks, the benchmark index's total return would have been 13.2% in 2024, Silverblatt added.
