The latest rally in U.S. stock futures stalled early Wednesday, as traders eyed a busy few days containing inflation updates and the start of the corporate earnings season.
How are stock-index futures trading
-
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.15%
rose 2 points, or 0%, to 4394 -
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
+0.14%
fell 2 points, or 0%, to 33934 -
Nasdaq 100 futures
NQ00,
+0.22%
gained 22 points, or 0.1%, to 15292
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
rose 135 points, or 0.4%, to 33739, the S&P 500
SPX
increased 23 points, or 0.52%, to 4358, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
gained 79 points, or 0.58%, to 13563.
What’s driving markets
The S&P 500 has risen 2.35% over the past three trading days as the yield on 10-year Treasurys
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
fell about 20 basis points from their fresh 16-year peak touched on Friday.
The decline in long-term implied borrowing costs comes after recent comments from Federal Reserve officials indicate the central bank may have finished raising interest rates for this cycle.
“Markets continued to grind higher as the headwinds of the Middle Eastern conflict were neutralized by a further softening of rhetoric from the Federal Reserve,” said Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor.
Bond yields fell further on Wednesday, but gains for stock-index futures were muted as more tentative trading sets in ahead of some important economic data and corporate reports in the next few days.
‘’The surge of optimism, fueled by hopes the Fed will go easier with its interest rate policies…appears to have plateaued,” said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown. “A little more caution is returning, as investors look ahead to tomorrow’s snapshot of inflation in the United States.”
The U.S. consumer price index report for September will published before Thursday’s opening bell on Wall Street, but before that on Wednesday investors must also parse the producer prices data for September, due at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and the minutes from the Fed’s previous policy meeting, due at 2 p.m.
“Investors are highly sensitive to data and if U.S. inflation shows any signs of tripping up in its downwards path, it is set to be unsettling and could upset expectations of a more dovish stance from the Fed,” Streeter added.
There’s another slew of Fed speakers on Wednesday, too. Fed Governor Christopher Waller will deliver comments in Park City, Utah at 10:15 a.m.; Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic is due to speak on the economic outlook at 12:15 p.m.; and Boston Fed President Susan Collins gives the Goldman Lecture on Economics at Wellesley College at 4:30 p.m..
Traders are also awaiting the start of the third-quarter company earnings season, which gets in full swing when banks such as JPMorgan Chase
JPM,
Citigroup
C,
and Wells Fargo
WFC,
deliver their numbers on Friday.
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