U.S. stocks look set to open in the red on Monday, with futures of the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indices falling following Friday’s higher close.

Geopolitical uncertainty continues to weigh on markets after Iranian officials declared that the Strait of Hormuz will not fully reopen until Washington meets seven conditions, maintaining a firm stance despite mediated proposals and recovering Persian Gulf oil exports.

Meanwhile, Brent crude held steady above $100 per barrel after Tehran warned of a stronger military response to any potential U.S. strikes amid plans for additional American troop deployments.

Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury bond yielded 5.25%, and the 2-year Treasury bond yielded 4.79%, at the last check. The CME Group’s FedWatch tool projections show markets pricing in 20.5% likelihood of the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates after its October meeting.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, declined in the premarket session on Monday. The SPY fell 0.2% to $768.11, while the QQQ declined 0.22% to $747.9.

Stocks In Focus

Space Exploration Technologies

• Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) was 1.18% higher in premarket on Monday after the Elon Musk-led rocket company completed three launches in less than 13 hours, sending astronauts, a classified U.S. intelligence payload, and Google’s first in-orbit AI experiment into space.
• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that SPCX maintains a strong price trend in the long, short, and medium terms.

Qualcomm

• Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) rose 3.96% in Monday premarket after it filed a prospectus for offering 25 million common shares.
• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that QCOM maintains a strong price trend in the long, short, and medium terms, with a poor growth score.

Pasqal Holding

• Pasqal Holding SA (NASDAQ:PSQL) fell 1.30% after it named Roger L. Chuchen as head of investor relations.
• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that PSQL maintains a weak price trend in the short, long, and medium terms.

Redwire

• Redwire Corp. (NYSE:RDW) rose 0.55% after it announced that it has been awarded a contract by Axiom Space to develop and deliver two Roll-Out Solar Array wings for its second space station module, according to a press release statement.
• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that RDW maintains a weak price trend in the short and medium terms but a strong trend in the long term.

Vistra

• Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) advanced 6.27% following a Bloomberg report that the Trump administration plans to offer the company a roughly $4 billion loan package to upgrade three of its nuclear plants.
• Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that VST maintains a weak price trend in the long, short, and medium terms, with a poor value score.

Cues From Last Session

Gains in consumer discretionary, information technology, and materials stocks—offset by lower health care shares—led U.S. stocks higher on Friday, as the Nasdaq Composite added over 300 points post-jobs data.

Insights From Analysts

Mohamed El-Erian paints a picture of a fractured financial landscape where stock market exuberance masks underlying macroeconomic strains. While equity investors treated soft labor data as a “Goldilocks scenario”—propelling the NASDAQ to new highs—El-Erian cautions against ignoring the structural pressures radiating from bond markets.

He emphasizes that fixed-income volatility is driven by a “long-term structural repricing” due to heavy supply and diminished traditional demand. This has triggered a critical shift: “the growing spillover of interest rate risk into credit and spread risk.”

According to El-Erian, the belief that surging risk-free rates can remain isolated is “now visibly under pressure” as widening high-yield spreads expose broader fiscal vulnerabilities.

Regarding the economy, El-Erian points to a widening “divergence between soft US survey data and hard economic data.” While weak survey indicators paint a troubling outlook, actual output and consumption remain solid. Ultimately, he suggests that stock market optimism relies on a fragile, dovish recalibration of Federal Reserve expectations that incoming data—such as ISM services and CPI figures—will soon rigorously test.

Upcoming Economic Data

Here’s what investors will be keeping an eye on this week.

• On Monday, September’s S&P U.S. services PMI will be released by 9:45 a.m., and September’s ISM services PMI report will be out by 10:00 a.m. ET.
• On Tuesday, August’s U.S. trade balance data will be released by 8:30 a.m. ET.
• Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan will participate in a Global Perspectives event at 6:00 p.m. ET.
• On Wednesday, minutes of the Fed’s September FOMC meeting will be released by 2:00 p.m., and August’s consumer credit data will be out by 3:00 p.m. ET.
• On Thursday, weekly initial jobless claims for the week ending Oct. 3 will be released by 8:30 a.m. ET.
• August’s monthly wholesale trade data will be out by 10:00 a.m., and St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem will deliver a speech at 1:40 p.m. ET.
• On Friday, Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid will speak at a Kansas City Economic Outlook event at 9:30 a.m. ET. Also, October’s preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey data will be released by 10:00 a.m. ET.

Commodities, Crypto, And Global Equity Markets

Crude Oil WTI futures were trading lower in the early New York session by 0.67% to hover around $90.50 per barrel.

Gold Spot US Dollar rose 0.62% to hover around $4,166.30 per ounce. The U.S. Dollar Index spot was 0.24% higher at the 102.17 level.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) was trading 1% higher at $86,040 per coin over the last 24 hours.

Asian markets were mostly higher on Monday, led by a surge in Japan’s Nikkei 225. Australia’s ASX 200 and India’s Nifty 50 posted gains, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng finished slightly higher in quiet trading. European markets were mixed in early trading.

Photo courtesy: Shutterstock