US stock futures are set to resume trading on Sunday night after a bruising week on Wall Street, with investors braced for more volatility as doubts about the artificial intelligence trade and the outlook for interest rates continue to weigh on markets.

All three major indexes ended the week lower. The S&P 500 closed down 2.7% at 7,376.86, its largest one-week point and percentage decline since the week ending 4 April 2025, although it remains up 7.8% so far this year. The Nasdaq Composite fell 3.4% to 24,579.42, its biggest one-week point and percentage drop since the week ending 16 October, and it is still up 5.8% in 2026. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.9% at 51,285.73, dropping 3.9% over its last two trading days, and it remains up 6.7% this year.

The sharpest damage came on Thursday, when a rout sent the indexes to their biggest one-day percentage fall since 4 April 2025, the week after President Donald Trump announced his so-called Liberation Day global tariffs. Friday brought a partial recovery in technology shares, with the Nasdaq gaining 1.09% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbing 4.21%, but it was not enough to repair the week.

The sell-off has been driven by unease over the AI trade and future spending on AI data centres under the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress and Democratic-led state governments. Analysts at Fiduciary Capital Management said in a note on Saturday that conditions for a broad equity bounce are not on the near-term horizon, adding that AI scepticism has been present for months. They noted that the Nasdaq essentially made all of its 2026 gains in two months, April and May, when it rose more than 27%, but from 1 June to 1 November the index was down 8.1%.

Whether Thursday was a steeper step down in a broad rerating of AI prospects or a capitulation remains to be seen, the firm said, but given the scale of money, debt and future spending promises committed to the trade, it doubts sentiment will recover meaningfully any time soon.

Interest rates are the other pressure point. Markets now expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again in December, with futures pricing roughly an 80% chance of another quarter-point increase. The odds firmed after October payrolls rose by 165,000, well above the forecast of around 59,000. Solid-looking economic growth and inflation persistently well above target is a recipe for further rate rises, Fiduciary Capital Management said. The 10-year Treasury yield closed Friday at 4.86%.

This week brings the data that will test that view. The October consumer price index arrives on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time, with economists surveyed by Bloomberg expecting a 0.3% monthly rise in the headline figure and 0.2% in the core index, cooling from September's 0.6% monthly jump. Because last year's government shutdown stopped the Bureau of Labor Statistics collecting October 2025 prices, there will be no year-on-year rate published. The October producer price index follows on Friday, with the annual rate expected near 6.6%, the steepest in almost four years.

Earnings also continue, with Constellation Energy reporting before the bell on Monday and Take-Two Interactive after the close, ten days before Grand Theft Auto VI ships on 19 November. CoreWeave, the most watched print in the AI complex, reports on Tuesday night, while Cisco and Applied Materials close the week on Thursday night.

Energy markets had their own dramatic week. Brent crude closed Friday at $98.32 and West Texas Intermediate at $90.83, the sharpest weekly slide for Brent since the 2020 pandemic, after Iran shortened its timetable for reopening the Strait of Hormuz from seven days to two in exchange for sanctions and blockade relief. Gold moved the other way, with December futures settling near $4,075. At the pump, gasoline averaged $4.020 a gallon on Sunday, according to AAA, down from $4.361 a month ago but up from $3.073 a year ago.

With futures reopening at 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, the first test of whether buyers are ready to step back in comes within hours, ahead of a week dominated by inflation data and earnings.