Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. NYSE stock futures were little changed early Friday after a record session, with two of the three major benchmark indexes on track for their third consecutive weekly advance. S&P 500 futures were just above the flat line, while Nasdaq-100 futures fell slightly. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose just 20 points. The S&P 500 hit an all-time intraday high of 7,816.70 on Thursday. The benchmark index also closed at a record. The technology and communications services sectors were among the index’s big winners, rising about 1% each. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.44% while the Topix rose 0.49%. South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.14% and the small-cap Kosdaq lost 0.57%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.93%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 was down 0.12%. The Australian benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.92%. “The market is appropriately bullish right now,” Anastasia Amoroso, chief investment strategist at Partners Group, said in an interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” highlighting the strength of U.S. corporate earnings. With more than 90% of S&P 500 companies reporting second-quarter results, earnings growth from the prior-year period is around 50%, according to FactSet. Amoroso also noted that the software has “recovered and rallied…I think the market realized that maybe we hadn’t properly priced in those risks.” In fact, the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) is up about 28% over the past six months after falling more than 24% in the first quarter. The VAT rose more than 3% on Thursday. Thursday’s gain put the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite on track for their third straight weekly advance. Looking ahead to Friday’s session, the first rises 0.5%, while the second advances 0.4%. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones is down 0.4% so far this week. There are no major results on Friday, but investors will take a look at the July retail sales numbers at 8:30 a.m. ET. On average, economists expect sales to grow 0.1% month over month, according to Dow Jones.
