Stock future rise ahead of first trade of May ;Apollo nears deal to buy Verizon’s media assets

U.S. stock futures moved higher in overnight trading on Sunday as investors readied for the first trading day of May.

Dow futures rose about 125 points. S&P 500 futures gained 0.45% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.33%.

Monday marks the first trading day of May. Despite Friday’s weakness in equities, the S&P 500 notched its third straight month of gains in April, adding more than 5% to the index as investors bet on a big economic and profit recovery from the pandemic.

The S&P 500 is now up 11% for the year. The Dow rose about 2.7% last month, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 5.4% in April.

Investors will also be monitoring the next batch of corporate earnings. Lowe’s, Estee Lauder, and ON Semiconductor report is expected to be out before the bell on Monday. Global stock markets have stagnated in recent weeks despite a deluge of strong earnings and economic data, but analysts think the rally will regain momentum.

The current round of corporate earnings is proving to be one of the most successful in history with more than a third of blue-chip companies having reported in the positive zone so far.

Meanwhile, there are strong reports that Apollo Global Management Inc is close to buying the media assets of Verizon Communications Inc in a deal that could be valued at close to $5 billion. Last week, media sources had reported that Verizon was exploring a sale of its media assets, which include Yahoo and AOL.

The deal is expected to be announced as early as Monday and is indicative of the fact that Verizon has been unable to compete with Google and Facebook for digital ads and perhaps now plans to concentrate on building a 5G network.

Verizon has struggled to grow its media properties, declaring them nearly worthless with a $4.6 billion write-down in 2018.

In 2019, it divested blogging platform Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and last year sold news website HuffPost to BuzzFeed. Verizon had earlier tested the market for potential buyers of Yahoo Finance, as per media sources, but had ultimately ended that search.

On the COVID front, the 7-day average of daily new cases fell to under 50,000, down 17% from a week prior. Brothels across Nevada reopened for business and casino capacity on the Las Vegas Strip increased to 80% as Nevada continued to ease coronavirus restrictions over the weekend.

Hospitalizations and deaths from the disease are now showing a negative trend as cases are falling. More than 100 million people in the U.S. or nearly a third of the population, have been fully vaccinated.