Stock futures rise slightly ahead of loaded week for tech earnings

Stock futures rose modestly on Sunday evening as Wall Street gears up for a busy week of corporate earnings.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 72 points, or about 0.2%. S&P 500 futures gained 0.2%, while Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.3%.

The move in futures comes after a volatile week in the stock market.

The S&P 500 dipped 0.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 2.1%. However, the Dow rose 0.8% and the small-cap Russell 2000 rose 3.5%.

The cooling off of the tech trade has hurt the broader market indexes, but the catch-up of areas like small caps has been encouraging to many market strategists.

"Now that we're seeing more participation, even though it's caused some volatility over the past few weeks, I think this is ultimately a better story for long-term investors as we move forward," said Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management.

This week's earnings slate will play a role in determining whether tech stocks can now bounce back. Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Apple and Amazon are all set to report their quarterly results in the coming days.

Another key event this week will be the Federal Reserve meeting, with the central bank set to release a new policy statement on Wednesday. The Fed is not expected to cut interest rates this week, but traders will be looking for clues as to how likely the central bank is to make a move at its September meeting.

The Federal Reserve's Federal Open Markets Committee meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the market is not expecting a rate cut this week.

Traders in the Fed fund futures market put the probability of the central bank holding rates steady for this meeting at roughly 96%, according to the CME Fed Watch tool.

However, traders do