Wall Street points toward a rebound after last week's rout

Fed chair Jerome Powell has warned that any decline in prices would not be a straight line

Wall Street pointed toward gains before the opening bell Monday after last week’s rout and ahead of another full slate of corporate earnings this week.

Futures for the benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.5% and futures for the Dow Jones industrials moved 0.4% higher.

Last week, U.S. shares suffered their worst setback since early December. Reports on inflation, the jobs market and retail spending have come in hotter than expected, raising expectations that the Federal Reserve will have to maintain an aggressive fiscal policy stance in a lengthening battle against inflation, meaning an elevated benchmark interest rate.

Higher rates pressure business activity and investment, and a string of rate hikes has not led to a consistent slowing of growth as hoped.

Geopolitical tensions also were weighing on sentiment, it said, after the U.S. and other western countries imposed new sanctions on Russia for its war on Ukraine.