Futures rose in Wednesday’s after-hours session, with investors looking for profits and data to get momentum to extend a 2-day rally that wiped out losses suffered during worst trading day from 2021.

During the regular session, stocks saw a two-day streak, calibrating a resurgence of COVID-19 cases against a searing economic expansion that continues to gain momentum. In the process, strong earnings helped the market recover from Monday’s pandemic-inspired slump, with investors focusing on fundamentals rather than increasing the number of coronaviruses.

Industry leaders Netflix (NFLX), Chipotle (CMG), Coca-Cola (KO), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Verizon (VZ) have exceeded market expectations, boosting a market that has seen little decline these last months. The selloff that started the week was the worst trading day of the year and frightened traders who had become “spoiled” by a seemingly endless streak of winning streaks.

“The truth is, investors have been very spoiled by the recent stock performance,” LPL Financial chief market strategist Ryan Detrick wrote on Wednesday.

“Incredibly, we haven’t seen that much 5% decline since October. While we firmly believe this bull market is alive and well, let’s not kid ourselves by thinking that trees grow forever. The risk is definitely increasing as we head into the difficult months of August and September, ”he added.

Netflix, however, has resisted the market trend. It exceeded analysts’ expectations for new subscribers in the second quarter, but fell short of the target of estimates for the third quarter. On Wednesday, the stock had its worst day in three months, falling more than 3% as markets registered their disapproval of its mixed results.

Monday’s massive selloff momentarily drew attention to quarterly earnings which almost uniformly reflected a strong rebound. The growing number of cases driven by the Delta variant – a more transmissible form of COVID-19 – has pushed the Dow (^ DJI), Nasdaq (^ IXIC) and S&P 500 (^ GSPC) at their biggest drop in months.

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However, investors are reconsidering some of that pessimism, with some analysts pointing out that hospitalizations and deaths have not increased as dramatically – and are well below what they were during the worst days of the outbreak. COVID-19.

“The market is playing this collective chicken game right now,” CIC Wealth executive vice president Malcolm Ethridge told Yahoo Finance Live. “We all agree that we cannot continue on this path for much longer. There is no obvious catalyst.

All eyes will be on Thursday’s jobless claims, which set a new pandemic-era low last week. Since the onset of COVID-19, the data set has served as an avatar of the health of the labor market and could take on new significance if the rise in infections begins to trigger further restrictions – which could lead to another round job losses.

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6:10 p.m. ET Wednesday night: equity futures rise

Here are the main moves in the markets at 6:10 p.m. ET:

• Dow Futures (YM = F): 34 716, +27

• Nasdaq Futures (NQ = F): 14,832, +4.25

• S&P 500 Futures Contracts (ES = F): 4,325, +2.75

Javier David is editor-in-chief for Yahoo Finance. Follow Javier on Twitter: @TeflonGeek

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