The major U.S. index futures are currently pointing to a roughly flat open on Wednesday, with stocks likely to show a lack of direction following the strong upward move seen in the previous session.
Traders may be reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy meeting later in the day.
The minutes of the Fed’s September meeting, when the central bank decided to slash interest rates by 50 basis points, may shed light on the outlook for rates.
Report on consumer and producer price inflation due to be released in the coming days may also provide clues about how aggressively the Fed will lower rates in the coming months.
U.S. stocks moved higher on Tuesday, with technology stocks turning in a strong performance. Pushing geopolitical concerns and interest-rate uncertainty aside, investors picked up stocks, choosing to focus on the earnings season.
The major averages all ended on a firm note. The Dow started off on a sluggish note and remained that way till midway through the day’s session before moving higher. The index ended the day with a gain of 126.13 points or 0.3 percent at 42,080.37.
The S&P 500 settled at 5,751.13, gaining 55.19 points or 1.0 percent, while the Nasdaq ended higher by 259.01 points or 1.5 percent at 18,182.92.
Travelers Companies Inc., Honeywell, Apple, Home Depot, Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce gained 1 to 2 percent.
Palo Alto Networks, up nearly 5 percent, was the top gainer in the Nasdaq. NVIDIA climbed about 3.7 percent, and Synopsis gained 3.2 percent. CoStar Group, Netflix, Broadcom, Autodest, Cadence, Airbnb, Booking Holdings and Adobe advanced 2 to 3 percent.
PepsiCo gained about 2 percent. The company announced today that its bottom line came in at $2.930 billion, or $2.13 per share, compared with $3.092 billion, or $2.24 per share in last year’s third quarter. The numbers, however, beat the Street estimates.
ExxonMobil, Valero Energy, Marathon Petroleum Corpoation, Super Micro Computer, Caterpillar, Chevron and American Express were among the notable losers.
On the economic front, the trade deficit in the U.S. narrowed to $70.4 billion in August 2024, the lowest in five months, from an upwardly revised $78.9 billion in July.
Exports increased 2 perecent to a record high of $271.8 billion, while imports dropped 0.9 percent to $342.2 billion.