U.S. stock futures are mixed early Thursday as Wall Street navigates a tech-led pullback, critical PCE inflation data, and retreating oil prices amid renewed diplomatic hopes in the Middle East. Thursday follows the Federal Reserve decision<\/a> to hold the benchmark interest rate steady at 3.75%-4% on Wednesday. <\/p>\n The Polymarket traders, a Polygon (CRYPTO: POL)<\/a> based prediction platform, are leaning slightly bearish for the Oct. 29 trading session. The “S&P 500 (SPX) Up or Down on October 29?” contract currently reflects a 47% chance of a higher open. <\/p>\n Traders are balancing steep drops in tech futures against a favorable macroeconomic data slate and cooling energy costs: <\/p>\n Divergent Index Futures: A tech selloff is dragging the broader market lower, while small caps and blue chips advance. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 1.14%, and S&P 500 futures fell 0.32%. Conversely, Russell 2000 futures gained 0.62%, and Dow Jones futures rose 0.44%. <\/p>\n Geopolitics & Retreating Oil: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled that Tehran is giving diplomacy “a chance to succeed”<\/a> and remains in contact with intermediaries to review a seven-day plan to de-escalate tensions. Energy markets retreated on the news; Brent crude slipped 1.37% to $110.11 a barrel, while WTI crude dropped 1.50% to $101.24 a barrel. <\/p>\n Earnings & Eco Data: Thursday’s crucial economic docket features the third-quarter advance GDP, September’s PCE price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, and initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET. The corporate calendar is headlined by earnings from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:<\/a>AMZN<\/a>), Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:<\/a>LLY<\/a>), Mastercard Inc. (NYSE:<\/a>MA<\/a>), Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:<\/a>INTC<\/a>), Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:<\/a>MRK<\/a>), and Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:<\/a>CAT<\/a>). <\/p>\n The Bull Case and Market Outlook <\/p>\n Market analyst Louis Navellier highlighted a surge in consumer optimism, with the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index jumping to 91.7 in October from 84.2 in September. The rebound in consumer confidence offers a potentially encouraging signal heading into the holiday shopping season, although consumers continue to cite elevated costs. <\/p>\n Despite the pre-market weakness in tech futures, Navellier remains highly bullish on AI infrastructure stocks, pointing to massive fundamental earnings beats. GE Vernova Inc. (NYSE:<\/a>GEV<\/a>) reported a 96% surge in Q3 new orders to $29 billion, while Vertiv Holdings Co. (NYSE:<\/a>VRT<\/a>) saw sales jump 60.8% alongside a 91.2% earnings spike. <\/p>\n Navellier argues that fundamentally superior data center stocks will continue to bounce back from any short-term, sentiment-driven pullbacks and resume their upward trajectory. <\/p>\n How the Previous Bet Played Out <\/p>\n The Oct. 28 Polymarket contract<\/a> successfully resolved “Up”. The contract recorded $33,567 in total trading volume. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:<\/a>SPY<\/a>) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:<\/a>QQQ<\/a>), which track the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, respectively, closed higher. SPY rose 0.34% to $772.31, while QQQ advanced 0.60% to $725.61. Meanwhile, the Dow tracker, State Street SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (NYSE:<\/a>DIA<\/a>), ended 0.27% higher at $524.68. <\/p>\n Read Also:US Consumers Keep Spending, But They’re Watching Value: Visa and Coca-Cola Offer a Split Read on the Economy<\/a> <\/p>\n Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. <\/p>\n Photo courtesy: Shutterstock <\/p>\n This article Stock Market: Will S&P 500 Open Up or Down Today?<\/a> originally appeared on Benzinga.com<\/a> <\/p>\n \u00a9 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. View…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[5097,28,122,101,939,2993,2994,32455,2995,932,112,32456,20112,147,9323,1170,1666,6480,2996,2997,923,19533,3733,32457],"class_list":["post-898513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-markets","tag-401k","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-financial-information","tag-investing","tag-investment-tools","tag-investor","tag-market-news","tag-markets","tag-mortgage","tag-mutual-funds","tag-personal-finance","tag-quote","tag-real-estate","tag-retirement","tag-stock","tag-stock-research","tag-stock-valuation","tag-stocks","tag-suze-orman","tag-tax","tag-track-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> Why That Number Matters <\/p>\n