By Mark DeCambre, MarketWatch

Dow has shed 950 points over the past two sessions

U.S. stock indexes Wednesday were poised to recapture some of the ugly losses accumulated over the past two sessions on the back of a persistent rout in once-highflying tech stocks and declines in oil.

U.S. financial markets will be closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving Day holiday (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/which-markets-are-closed-on-thanksgiving-2018-11-20)and see an early close Friday.

How are benchmarks performing?

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 115 points, or 0.5%, at 24,555. S&P 500 futures were up 14.60 points, or 0.6%, at 2,654.50, while Nasdaq-100 futures advanced 52.75 points to reach 6,586.25, a climb of 0.8%.

On Tuesday, the Dow fell 551.8 points, or 2.2%, to end at 24,465.64, and tumbled by as many as 648 points at the session's lows. The S&P 500 index closed with a loss of 48.84 points, or 1.8%, at 2,641.9, while the Nasdaq Composite Indexshed 119.65 points to 6,908.82, a drop of 1.7%.

Tuesday's decline erased year-to-date gains for both the Dow and S&P 500, while the Nasdaq now clings to a 0.1% advance for 2018. Month to date, the Nasdaq has fallen 5.4%, the S&P and Dow have retreated 2.6% in November.

Read:Why share buybacks aren't the stock market's safety net (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-share-buybacks-didnt-come-to-the-stock-markets-rescue-in-november-2018-11-20)

According to Dow Jones Market Data, the Monday-to-Tuesday descent for the S&P 500 is the worst since 1982, the ugliest since 1994 for the Dow and the steepest for the Nasdaq since 2000.

What's driving the market?

U.S. investors were hoping for a respite to close out the worst start to Thanksgiving week in decades, with fears about valuations of technology and internet-related stocks, sluggish growth, policy errors by the Federal Reserve and uncertainty about trade relations between the U.S. and China swirling in investors' minds.

Contributing some early upward momentum to the energy sector were modest gains in crude-oil prices, with data released Tuesday (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/api-data-reportedly-show-an-unexpected-decline-in-us-crude-supplies-2018-11-20) momentarily alleviating growing worries about global oversupply, which has driven U.S. benchmark oil deep into bear-market territory, defined as a decline of a at least 20% from a recent peak.

Looking ahead, investors will digest a bevy of economic reports to gauge the health of the domestic economy after a series of reports of the housing market (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/home-builder-confidence-tumbles-the-most-since-2014-as-housing-headwinds-catch-up-2018-11-19)has reinforced the view that increases to benchmark interest rates are eroding confidence in the housing industry.

What are strategists saying?

"America's battered equity markets are limping towards the Thanksgiving holiday with precious little to be thankful for," wrote JR Zhou, chief market strategist at broker Infinox, in a Wednesday note.

He said the realization "that the strength of America's domestic economy is being rendered increasingly irrelevant by the continued weakness of its trading partners, and "the Federal Reserve's hawks risk becoming an albatross," are weighing on market sentiment and contributing to volatile markets.

Which data are ahead?

What stock are in focus

Deere & Co. (DE) shares were falling in premarket trade after the equipment maker reported disappointing quarterly profits. Shares were down 2.7% before the bell.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 21, 2018 06:58 ET (11:58 GMT)