U.S. stock futures were flat Wednesday morning as markets braced for two closely watched events: the release of July’s personal consumption expenditures price index and Nvidia’s second-quarter earnings report after the closing bell.
S&P 500 futures edged down 0.1% and Nasdaq-100 futures slipped 0.2%; Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 6 points, equivalent to a 0.01% gain. Tuesday’s session extended the Dow’s winning streak to three straight sessions, with the index rising 160.24 points, or 0.3%. Both benchmarks closed higher Tuesday, with the S&P 500 up 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite finishing 0.7% ahead, each benefiting from retreating bond yields and weaker oil prices.
The PCE price index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation — is set for release at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists expect a 0.1% rise month-over-month and a 3.6% year-over-year increase for July, according to CNBC. That would mark a slight improvement from June, when prices rose 3.7% on an annual basis and fell 0.1% on a monthly basis.
The report arrives as bond markets remain in focus. The 10-year Treasury yield gave back nearly 8 basis points on Tuesday, reversing some of the climb that had pushed the 30-year bond rate to its highest mark in close to two decades last week.
Nvidia is set to report after the close alongside Salesforce and CrowdStrike. Analysts polled by FactSet, as compiled by CNBC, forecast Nvidia will post $2.09 per share in earnings on revenue of $92.28 billion. Nvidia’s valuation has crossed the $5 trillion threshold, making it the S&P 500’s top constituent, and investors are looking to its quarterly figures for clues about the direction of equities more broadly.
Oil prices extended their decline, with Brent crude falling to $85.10 a barrel, down more than 2% on the day. According to The Wall Street Journal, Brent is down more than 9% on the week — a loss of roughly $10 a barrel in three sessions — as regional leaders have held talks in the Middle East without producing any significant agreement.
Also on investors’ radar is Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s speech on Friday at the central bank’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In a note to clients cited by CNBC, Piper Sandler’s head of central bank policy Kurt Lewis said he expects Warsh to devote most of his remarks to high-level economic topics rather than offer concrete guidance on the path of interest rates.
