S&P 500 Futures: Mildly bid as vaccine hopes battle Biden’s tax hike proposal, covid fears

S&P 500 Futures defend 4,100 threshold, up 0.20% intraday around 4,135 by the press time of early Friday. Even so, the risk barometer remains on track to snap a four-week uptrend.

Wall Street benchmarks rejected Wednesday’s recovery moves on US President Joe Biden’s 40% tax hike proposal for capital gains the previous day. Also challenging the market sentiment was the coronavirus (COVID-19) fears emanating from Asia and downbeat updates over the Aussie-China and Iran-Iraq tussles, not to forget the Russia-Ukraine tension.

Read: Wall Street Close: Bears look set to snap four-week uptrend on fears of US capital gains tax hike

It should, however, be noted that the reassessment of market risks highlights the fact that the Democratic Party holds a thin majority in the US House and the Senate, which in turn dims fears of tax hike for wealthy American investors. Further, increasing odds of Johnson & Johnson regaining its vaccine approval from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) joins Canada's upbeat vaccination drive to recall the buyers. Ottawa’s jabbing marches toward the standards of the US, Israel and the UK, as per the COVID-19 vaccine progress data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Even so, Japan’s readiness to recall emergency in Tokyo and surrounding three prefectures and Australia’s first infection case in multiple days challenge the bulls. Additionally, New Zealand recently joined the Western countries to tighten border controls following the recent covid resurgence, which in turn offer an extra burden on the market sentiment.

Amid these plays, the US 10-year Treasury yield stabilizes around 1.55% whereas the US dollar index (DXY) drops back towards 91.00.

With the flash readings of April activity numbers from Markit are up for publishing, global traders will check whether the cautious optimism in Europe, the UK and the US is worth believing or not.