Stock futures are down slightly as the S&P 500 teeters on the edge of a bear market

Stock futures fell Thursday night as investors braced for the S&P 500 index for a possible slide into official bear market territory.

Futures related to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 68 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.2% and Nasdaq-100 futures were down 0.3%.

employment WednesdayThe S&P 500 and Dow rebounded from their intraday lows but are still down 0.1% and 0.3%, respectively. The S&P closed down more than 18% from its all-time high, and would be in an official bear market if this loss deepened to 20%. The Dow Jones index has fallen for six consecutive trading sessions.

The Nasdaq gained less than 0.1% on Wednesday, but the tech-heavy index has already entered a bear market, down more than 29% from its all-time high.

The stock market has been in decline for months, starting with high-growth, unprofitable tech stocks late last year and even spreading to companies with healthy cash flows in recent weeks. Thursday, Apple fell into a bear market On their own, to become the last of the big tech companies names to be subject to sale.

The drop wiped out much of the rapid gains that stocks had enjoyed from pandemic lows in March 2020.

“Large deviations from long-term price trends have been used to define the bubble,” Dirk Wheeler, a Citi strategist, said in a note to clients on Thursday. “We found US stocks were in a bubble based on this metric, and we are now exiting it.” .

One reason stocks have suffered in recent months is high inflation, and the Federal Reserve’s attempts to contain prices by raising interest rates. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told NPR on Thursday that Cannot guarantee a “smooth landing“That lowered inflation without causing a recession.

Although stocks enjoyed a two-week rally after the Fed first raised rates in March, those gains quickly fizzled out through a brutal April and selling continued into May. There are some signs, such as investor sentiment surveys and some stability in the Treasury market this week, that the market may be soon, but many investors and strategists say the market may need to take another big step.

said Andrew Smith, senior investment analyst at Delos Capital Advisors.

Developments in cryptocurrency Wall Street has also been nervous this week, with bitcoin dropping below $30,000 and stablecoins struggling to maintain their peg.

On the economic data front, Friday features an import price reading for April and an early look at consumer confidence for May.