us stock futures were little changed thursday and holding the latest gains after oversold conditions helped bulls suppress worries about aggressive rate rises from the federal reserve  on wednesday the dow jones industrial average djia rose 436 points or 14 to 31581 the sp 500 spx increased 72 points or 183 to 3980 and the nasdaq composite comp gained 247 points or 214 to 11792 the nasdaq composite snapped a seven day losing streak and was up 108 from its midjune low but remained down 246 year to date wall street was striving to record a second consecutive day of gains as bulls held their ground despite more warnings that the federal reserve would maintain its aggressive stance on defeating inflation fed chair jeromepowell is due to take part on thursday in a discussion on monetary policy hosted by the cato institute in washington due to start at 910 am eastern any comments by powell on the fed’s strategy are expected to match the hawkish tone adopted the previous day by vicechair lael brainard who warned higher interest rates that cool the economy would be necessary “for some time” worries about rampant inflation the higher borrowing costs needed to suppress it and the consequently strong dollar have been roiling stock markets of late but the sp 500 was able to absorb the brainard comments and rally 18 on wednesday recovering off an eightweek low around the 3900 level as traders pointed to technical factors supporting the bounce in particular the 14day relative strength index for sp 500 futures had fallen into oversold territory below 30 according to cmc markets it was only three weeks ago that the closely watched momentum gauge was over 70 and signaling the stock benchmark was overbought “markets are shortterm oversold but everyone knows it a shortterm rally here shouldn’t be surprising but the lack of one would be both surprising and concerning for the mediumterm” said jonathan krinsky chief market technician at btig the mood has also been improved by benchmark bond yields pull pulling back from recent highs as oil prices this week fell to their cheapest since before russia invaded ukraine in february with brent crude brn00 below 90 a barrel “there may be fresh storms brewing for the global economy but inflation is the tornado to tame and the drop in crude prices has lifted hopes in the us at least that the price spiral may be easier to control” said susannah streeter senior investment and markets analyst hargreaves lansdown a further boost to sentiment came as the dollar index dxy  which midweek looked to challenge 1110 for the first time in 20 years showed some signs of running out of steam the reason for the latter is that the euro eurusd appeared to have found its footing just below buck parity as the market waits to see if the european central bank on thursday will deliver a chunky 75 basis point rise in interest rates to damp eurozone inflation running at a record high of 91 the ecb announcement is due at 815 am eastern the pound gbpusd is also off multidecade lows as investors prepare for new uk prime minister liz truss to provide details on a mooted £150 billion 173 billion support package for households and business struggling with surging power prices us economic updates set for release on thursday include the weekly initial jobless claims report at 830 am and consumer credit for july at 3 pm both eastern