Wall Street rose modestly early Wednesday ahead of a decision by the Federal Reserve on interest rates and the government's latest data on inflation.
Futures for the S&P 500 and futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 0.1% before the bell.
Wall Street expects the government’s consumer price index to remain unchanged at 3.4% in May. Inflation as measured by CPI is down sharply from its peak at 9.1% in 2022, but it has seemingly stalled around 3%. That has complicated the Fed’s goal of taming inflation back to its target rate of 2%.
The Fed has held its main interest rate at its highest level in more than two decades and Wall Street is currently hoping for one or two cuts to that rate this year. Virtually no one expects the Fed to move its main interest rate at its current meeting, which started Tuesday. Policymakers will be publishing their latest forecasts on Wednesday for where they see interest rates and the economy heading.
Data on the economy have come in mixed recently, and traders are hoping for a slowdown that stops short of a recession and is just right in magnitude.
The economy has remained resilient with support from a strong jobs market and consumer spending. Consumers are becoming increasingly stressed, especially those with lower incomes, and retailers have been warning investors about the potential impact to earnings and revenue. The U.S. jobs market has been showing some signs of cooling, which could ease inflation but put more stress on consumers.
In equities, Paramount Global continued to fall before the bell after National Amusem*nts — which owns a majority voting stake in the embattled entertainment giant — said Tuesday it ended talks on a possible merger of Paramount with movie production company Skydance Media. Paramount shares fell 2% before the bell following a nearly 8% drop a day earlier.
Even though it came up a tad short of Wall Street's sales and profit targets, Oracle jumped 8.9% in off-hours trading after the chipmaker revealed a partnership with Google that would link the two company's cloud services. Investors were also encouraged by Oracle's bookings and strong full-year guidance.
In Europe, Germany's DAX added 0.5% at midday and the CAC 40 in Paris climbed 0.4%. In London, the FTSE 100 was up 0.8%.
In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 0.7% to 38,876.71.
Higher inflation and falling wages in Japan are raising questions about how the central bank can navigate away from near-zero interest rates. The Bank of Japan will issue a policy decision on Friday. In March, it raised its benchmark rate from minus 0.1% to a range of zero to 0.1%, the first such increase in 17 years.
The government reported Wednesday that producer prices rose 2.4% in May, as the yen's weakness against the U.S. dollar raises costs for imports of fuel and manufacturing components. At the same time, the latest data show real wages adjusted for inflation fell in April for the 25th straight month.
The worry is that the Bank of Japan will be constrained from raising interest rates out of concern that higher prices will depress consumer spending, hurting the overall economy.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index sank 1.3% to 17,947.88, while the Shanghai Composite index rebounded, gaining 0.3% to 3,037.47.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.5% to 7,715.50. In Bangkok, the SET was flat.
Gains in technology shares pushed prices higher in South Korea, where the Kospi rose 0.8% to 2,728.17, and in Taiwan, whose Taiex jumped 1.2%.
In other trading early Wednesday, benchmark U.S. crude oil climbed 85 cents to $78.75 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the international standard, was up 77 cents at $82.69 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 157.34 Japanese yen from 157.14 yen. The euro climbed to $1.0762 from $1.0740.
Trading was subdued Tuesday on Wall Street, although the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite index both hit records for the second straight day.
The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to 5,375.32, driven largely by gains in tech stocks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 0.9% to 17,343.55.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged the market, slipping 0.3% to 38,747.42.
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