Nasdaq Futures Jump After March CPI Data

Nasdaq futures surged nearly 2% on Tuesday after data showed consumer prices rose largely in line with estimates, taking pressure off megacap technology stocks that were hammered by expectations of aggressive U.S. interest rate hikes.

The Labor Department's report showed consumer prices shot up to 8.5% in the 12 months through March, slightly higher than the estimated 8.4%, although the so-called core CPI fell short of estimates at 6.5%.

The benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yield fell to 2.71% after touching 2.83% earlier in the day, a level last seen in late 2018. [US/]

"You're seeing futures are up because everyone came into this report expecting inflation would be a lot higher than anticipated. And what we're actually seeing is that core CPI came in slightly lower than expected," said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital in New York.

"This is a very positive report for stocks and particularly for tech stocks, the long-duration equities which have been left for dead as the 10-year yield spiked."

Megacap growth stocks such as Tesla Inc, Meta Platforms Inc, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc and Microsoft Corp rose between 1.3% and 2.7% in premarket trading.

Surging Treasury yields triggered a rout in growth stocks in recent weeks, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq now down 14.3% so far this year.

Money markets see a 93.5% likelihood of a 50 basis point rate hike at the central bank's meeting next month, largely unchanged from before the data. [IRPR]

At 09:07 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 186 points, or 0.54%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 44.75 points, or 1.01%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 247 points, or 1.76%.

Cisco Systems Inc fell 2.3% after Citigroup cut its rating on the company's shares to "sell", while CrowdStrike Holdings Inc gained 5.7% after Goldman Sachs upgraded the rating for the cybersecurity company.

Beyond Meat Inc jumped 5.1% after it expanded its meatless chicken distribution to 8,000 new retail locations.