U.S. Stock Market Futures Slip Ahead of the Fed’s July Meeting Minutes Release
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There is a debate among Fed officials over when to taper pandemic-era asset purchases.
Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty ImagesU.S. stock market futures were indicating a lower open Wednesday, ahead of the release of minutes from the July meeting of the Federal Reserve’s key monetary policy committee.
In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.47% while the Shanghai Composite lifted 1.11% and Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 increased 0.59%. The FTSE 100 in London was 0.3% lower as the pan-European Stoxx 600 hovered around flat. The CAC 40 in Paris moved 0.3% into the red and Frankfurt’s DAX dropped 0.1%.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were pointing down around 80 points, set for a soft open after the index declined 282 points Tuesday to close at 35,343. Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were also pointing to a lower open.
Investors will be able to digest the full details from the last meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee—the monetary policy-making core of the Federal Reserve—when the group’s July meeting minutes are released later.
Read: Minutes of the Fed’s July Meeting Come Today. Look for Clues on the Taper Debate.
Analysts pointed to the FOMC minutes as being the likely main highlight in the day ahead, amid a trickle of economic data and a few headline corporate earnings.
Markets saw declines Tuesday after key retail sales figures fell short of expectations, and amid wider concerns about how outbreaks of the more contagious Delta variant coronavirus poses a global risk.
“The decline in risk appetite was reflected in other asset classes too, with oil prices continuing to fall as delta fears saw increasing questions being asked about the strength of economic demand over the coming months,” said Henry Allen, an analyst at Deutsche Bank.
Michael Hewson, an analyst at broker CMC Markets, noted that “this uncertainty about a slowing global recovery may well have prompted a little bit of weakness in the past two days, however Asia markets appear to be shrugging that off after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand kept rates unchanged instead of raising them in response to the new lockdown imposed in New Zealand.”
Hewson pointed to the RBNZ’s decision as a boost for Asian markets, which have outperformed European equities on Wednesday.
Economic news coming down the pipe in the day ahead includes data on building permits and housing starts for July, and remarks from St. Louis Fed President James Bullard.
On the earnings front, stock trading platform Robinhood will mark its first quarterly results as a public company, joining Tencent, Nvidia, Carlsberg, Cisco, Lowe’s, Target, and others reporting on Wednesday.
Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@dowjones.com