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Passengers exit the Wall Street subway station near the New York Stock Exchange.
Michael Nagel | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Futures contracts linked to major US stock indexes rose at the start of the evening session on Wednesday evening as investors awaited the key inflation report due out on Thursday.
Dow futures opened up 41 points, while those tied to the S&P 500 rose 0.1%. Nasdaq 100 contracts were mostly flat.
US markets continued to trade within a narrow range on Wednesday, with all three major indices ending the day within 0.5% of Tuesday’s closing levels. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all fell during regular trading, ending the session far from all-time highs.
The S&P 500 remains the closest to its benchmark and is only 0.44% away from a new all-time high. The Dow and Nasdaq are about 2% off the records.
The after-hours session saw video game retailer GameStop plunge 10% in extended trading despite the company announcing that it had chosen former Amazon CEO Matt Furlong as its next CEO. Investors may be dismayed about the SEC’s information request, as well as filing an application with the regulator to sell up to 5 million additional shares.
Other topics from the recent meme trade, including clean energy fuels and Clover Health, have also been moving in the extended session.
Investors are waiting for the next inflation reading to gauge whether higher price pressures are only temporary as the economy continues to recover from the pandemic-induced recession.
The Labor Department is due to release CPI data at 8:30 AM ET on Thursday. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the May CPI report to show prices rising 4.7% year over year after April’s 4.2% increase.
For weeks, investors have been worried about whether a sudden wave of inflation might prompt the Federal Reserve to rein in the pace of asset purchases or start signaling an increase in interest rates. However, some say these concerns are premature and that the central bank will give markets plenty of time before it takes any steps.
“We believe the Fed’s easy money policies will continue for some time,” wrote Scott Wren, senior global market analyst at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
“We don’t expect the Fed to raise rates this year or next, but we think it’s likely that our central bankers will start hinting that they are considering reducing their bond purchases, perhaps as soon as this fall,” he added. “This means that we continue to tend towards cyclical sectors that are affected by the ebb and flow of the economy.”
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