Stock futures were little-changed early Wednesday, the final full day of trading ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Near 8:45 a.m. ET, futures contracts tied to the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq were higher, though no move was greater than the Nasdaq's 0.14% advance.
Wednesday will serve as the final full day of trading this week, with U.S. markets closed tomorrow for Thanksgiving and markets open for just a half day on Black Friday.
Investors will face a busy economic calendar ahead of the holiday weekend, with the latest data on weekly jobless claims showing 240,000 new filings for unemployment insurance were made last week, the most since mid-August. Economists expected initial claims to total 225,000 for the week ending November 19.
Durable goods orders for October were also released early Wednesday, showing orders rose 1% last month against expectations for a 0.4% increase, according to data from Bloomberg.
Data on manufacturing activity, new home sales, and the minutes from the Fed's latest policy meeting are also set for release on Wednesday.
Traders will look to build on recent momentum for U.S. stocks, with the S&P 500 closing above 4,000 on Tuesday for the first time in two months while the Dow closed at a three-month high.
Over the last month, the Dow is up nearly 10%, while the S&P 500 is up more than 6.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq continues to lag, rising less than 3% over that period as higher rates and the collapse of crypto markets weigh on the broader tech industry.
Still, recent market action has some strategists growing more bullish towards year-end, even as high profile teams at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs issued more cautious outlooks for the stock market this week.
"The market is like a coiled spring," BMO Capital Markets' chief investment strategist Brian Belski told Yahoo Finance Live on Tuesday. "I think the market is going to continue to...climb higher. I do really think that there's a good shot that we're going to be well above 4,000 [on the S&P 500] at year-end."
Belski has a year-end price target of 4,300 on the S&P 500, which implies the index could gain another 8% or so through the end of this year.
Elsewhere in markets early Wednesday, the price of oil remained under pressure with WTI futures trading down 2% to around $79 per barrel, within a few dollars of 2022 lows amid conflicting reports on Saudi Arabian output this week and news the U.S. is closing in on announcing a price cap on Russian oil exports.
In crypto markets, the fallout from the collapse of FTX continues to reverberate through the industry, though the price of bitcoin was up a few percentage points early Wednesday to trade near $16,580.
On Tuesday, Digital Currency Group, the parent company of troubled exchange Genesis Global, became the latest major crypto player to come out and reassure investors that a bankruptcy filing was not imminent.
In a memo to DCG employees, CEO Barry Silbert said the decision to halt redemptions and new activity on Genesis last week resulted from a "liquidity and duration mismatch in the Genesis loan book."
Silbert disclosed there were intercompany loans made between DCG and Genesis, but argued these loans were made "in the same vein as hundreds of crypto investment firms."
On the earnings side, results this morning from Deere & Co. (DE) sent shares higher by about 5% with the agricultural giant reporting profits that topped expectations.
Other movers early Wednesday included names that released results after Tuesday's market close, including HP (HPQ), Nordstrom (JWN), and Autodesk (ADSK).
HP shares were up about 2% early Wednesday after the company announced plans to reduce its workforce by up to 12%, or by 6,000 jobs, by the end of its fiscal 2025 in response to a slowdown in the PC market.
Nordstrom shares dropped as much as 9% early Wednesday after reporting a sales decline in its most recent quarter and forecasting lower profits for the full year.
Autodesk (ADSK) shares were down as much as 10% after the company cut its outlook for billings and cash flow this year, citing "less demand for multi-year, up-front and more demand for annual contracts than we expected."