Stock market news live updates: Stock futures trade mixed, hovering near all-time highs - Yahoo Finance

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Stock futures opened mixed Thursday evening, holding near record levels as investors digested the latest, mixed set of economic data and earnings results.

Contracts on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ticked lower, while Dow futures gained. Both the S&P 500 and Dow ended at record closing levels on Thursday, continuing to make new highs as optimism over both the pace of the economic recovery and strength in corporate earnings results lingered.

Disney (DIS) shares jumped in late trading after the Dow component posted both revenue and earnings that topped expectations for its latest quarter, with growth at its closely watched Disney+ streaming platform holding up more robustly than anticipated. Airbnb (ABNB) shares fell, however, with the home rental company forecasting a drop in current-quarter bookings as the Delta variant weighs on travel. Doordash (DASH) also saw shares dip during the after-hours session, despite posting second-quarter sales and earnings that topped estimates as food delivery held up in the quarter.

For the broader economy, the data have been trending higher, albeit with some bumps along the way. Thursday's weekly report on new jobless claims showed a third straight weekly drop in new filings, albeit at a level still elevated compared to 2019 trends. And while Wednesday's inflation report on consumer prices was in-line with estimates, Thursday's print on producer prices exceeded estimates. The 7.8% increase in the producer price index on a year-over-year basis was the highest on record, in Labor Department data spanning back more than a decade.

"I think the current inflation prints we're seeing ... reflect mostly transitory things, and they would calm down on their own. But I do think that once those pandemic-specific effects have passed through, there is going to be some inflation that is above the Fed's comfort zone," Tom Graff, Brown Advisory head of fixed income, told Yahoo Finance. "I think they're going to be able to take control of it, I think they'll start tapering QE in [the fourth quarter] and probably wind up hiking late in 2022 or early in 2023. And then the question just becomes, how many hikes does it take? How high do interest rates need to go to get inflation back under control."

Meanwhile, a string of record closing highs for the major equity market indexes has left traders to ponder what might emerge as a catalyst to knock stocks off their upward trajectory. The S&P 500 has not seen a 5% pullback since October of last year, and is up nearly 19% so far for the year-to-date.

Still, some strategists suggested the path of least resistance remains up and to the right for stocks.

"Under the hood, so many companies have had a 10%, 14%, 15% retrenchment from peak to trough. So I’m not as concerned that the markets have been trending higher because there’s a few big names that hold it up," Kevin Simpson, Capital Wealth Planning founder and CEO, told Yahoo Finance. "There are so many companies that had pullbacks of magnitudes that we would consider correction territory."

"We're seeing markets show incredible resilience, and they continue to make new highs," he added. "I would expect some volatility – I don't know what the catalyst is. The Delta variant is the one staring us in the face as certainly the most obvious. And if we see a 10% pullback, which I'm not expecting, I would jump in and buy it with both feet."

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