U.S. stock futures slipped on Wednesday in a sign Wall Street may struggle to continue its latest rally as investors adopt a cautious stance ahead of Fed minutes.
How are stock futures trading
-
S&P 500 futures
ES00
dipped 8 points, or 0.2% to 3827 -
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00
rose 19 points to 30,959 -
Nasdaq 100 futures
NQ00
rose 6.75 points to 11,816
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
fell 129 points, or 0.4%, to 30,968, the S&P 500
SPX
rose 0.1% to 3,831 and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
rose 1.7% to 11,322.
What’s driving markets
The positive tone from the previous session’s sharp rebound was dissipating in Wednesday’s early trade.
In particular, falling bond yields of late are seen as a reason to move back into some of the high growth tech stocks that received such a shellacking over the past year or so. The popular, but recently battered ARK Innovation fund
ARKK
run by investment manager Cathy Wood, jumped more than 9% on Tuesday.
With interest rates in mind, traders will be keeping an eye on the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting, due at 2 p.m. Eastern. Clues to the likely pace of Fed monetary policy tightening may also come from the Institute for Supply Management’s services index report for June, due 10 a.m. Eastern.
Earlier, Asia delivered a somewhat curmudgeonly response to Wall Street’s overnight recovery. Japan’s Nikkei 225
JP:NIK
lost 1.2% and China’s Shanghai Composite
CN:SHCOMP
shed 1.4% after it emerged Beijing was once again tacking COVID-19 outbreaks in several regions of the country.
The dollar index
DXY
was holding hear 19-year highs as the euro
EURUSD
eyed parity and sterling
GBPUSD
traded sub $1.20 amid political worries in the UK, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson is again facing pressure to stand down.
Other markets
-
Crude prices were steady after the previous session’s sharp drop. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures
CLCLQ22
added 0.1% to $99.71 a barrel amid concerns that despite a slowing global economy the market remains tight. -
Gold futures
GC00
were down 0.2% at $1,760 an ounce . The yellow metal sometimes struggles when the dollar rallies and it fell sharply on Tuesday, to leave it changing hands near an eight-month low.
Silver
SI00
tends to track gold and is up just 0.4% to $19.20 an ounce, near is cheapest since July 2020. The grey metal has also been suffering from concerns slowing economic activity will reduce demand from hi-tech hardware producers.
Bitcoin
BTCUSD
is off 1.3% to $20198.
