Stock futures edged lower Tuesday evening on the heels of a mixed session during the regular trading day, with the three major indexes struggling for direction at the start of June.

Contracts on each of the three major indexes dipped as the overnight session began. Cyclical and "reopening" stocks had outperformed during the regular trading day, helping the Dow end in positive territory while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq declined. Still, shares of stay-at-home stock Zoom Video Communications (ZM) rose in late trading after the company's first-quarter earnings and current-quarter guidance topped estimates, helping alleviate concerns over a growth slowdown for the software company as more in-person activities resume. 

Investors on Tuesday digested a mixed report on the state of U.S. manufacturing from the Institute of Supply Management. While the headline index of manufacturing sector activity topped estimates, the report also showed that labor shortages contributed to rising prices and capped production. The Labor Department's May jobs report on Friday is set to offer another look at the pace of re-hiring last month and the employment gaps still left to be filled following the pandemic. 

But as jitters over rising inflation remain top of mind for many investors, some strategists suggested markets' reactions to recent economic data have been overblown, given the likelihood that many of these rising prices will prove transitory.  

"Overall, a lot of the fears of inflation that are going on in the markets right now are more than necessary. Investors have just been a little bit more fearful than necessary at the time," Josh Kutin, Columbia Threadneedle Investments North America head of asset allocation, told Yahoo Finance. "That said, we have experienced some pretty serious reactions to it, even that big CPI [consumer price index] print we saw a couple weeks ago did surprise investors, and if we see something similar like that in that jobs report, that could create a little bit of a short-term blip." 

Others also suggested that investors could be in for further choppiness in trading in the near-term.

"We've had such a run-up since the lows of the pandemic that now, I think we're going to see a summer that's a bumpy ride," Loreen Gilbert, WealthWise Financial chief executive officer, told Yahoo Finance. "And it's an opportunity for investors to go in as we see declines, because we do expect that we're in a bull market run that's going to continue." 

© 2021 LeackStat.com