United States stocks got up and dusted themselves off in late trading on Thursday (Friday AEST) after an earlier sell-off led by a technology company that has become mired in American politics.
By 9:10 am AEST (11:10 pm GMT Thursday), Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 futures were quoted higher but their tech-laden Nasdaq-100 equivalents continued to be weighed down by Telsa woes.
Shares in the electric vehicle maker plunged as a feud escalated between its CEO Elon Musk and the man he recently stopped advising, U.S. President Donald Trump, pulling down the indices of which it is part.
This had offset positive trade news from Trump as investors assessed the state of the American economy on the basis of weak jobs data and the prospects for further interest rate cuts.
"The fallout for Tesla stock is self-evident," Stanphyl Capital portfolio manager Mark Spiegel was quoted in a Reuters article as saying.
"I see no meaningful fallout from this for the rest of the market, other than its slight effect on the indexes and index funds. The overall stock market has plenty of problems, but Tesla isn't one of them."
In futures trading, the Dow was 62 points or 0.15% higher at 42,431 and the S&P 500 was 2.75 points or 0.05% stronger at 5,948.75 but the Nasdaq lost 14.00 points or 0.06% to 21,568.25, all of these markers ended regular trading lower.
Jack Daniel's maker Brown-Forman (NYSE: BF.B) fell almost 18% during regular trading after forecasting a decline in annual revenue and profit but recovered a tiny slither of its losses after the closing bell.
It was a similar story for consumer products giant Procter & Gamble (NHYSE.PG), which fell 1.9% after announcing it would cut 7,000 jobs, or about 6% of its workforce, over the next two years in a restructuring.
The market is waiting for the non-farm payroll date on Friday to better understand the state of the U.S. economy and the prospects of further easing of monetary policy in the wake of weak jobs figures this week.
