U.S. stock futures post modest gains after Wall Street losses on reports of Biden investor tax hike

U.S. stock futures showed modest gains Friday, one day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other major indexes each declined about 1% on a report about President Biden's plan to raise taxes on the country’s most financially successful investors.

London and Frankfurt opened lower and Tokyo declined while Shanghai and Hong Kong advanced, according to the Associated Press. 

Wall Street futures were higher after the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 index each lost 0.9% on Thursday following a Bloomberg News report, citing unidentified sources, that Biden plans to raise taxes on Americans who make more than $1 million on stock trades. The money would purportedly pay for roughly $1 trillion in childcare, universal pre-kindergarten education and paid leave for workers.

Such an increase, if enacted, would be the highest tax rate on investment gains, which are mostly paid by the wealthiest Americans, since the 1920s. The rate has not exceeded 33.8% in the post-World War Two era, according to Reuters.