(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were subdued on Tuesday as investors refrained from placing big bets ahead of a crucial inflation report this week that could influence the Federal Reserve at its monetary policy meeting this month.
A November reading of the consumer price index (CPI), due on Wednesday, is among the last major datasets ahead of the Fed’s Dec. 17-18 meeting. The report is expected to show a slight increase in inflation last month.
Trader bets on the Fed delivering another 25 basis point interest rate cut next week stand at over 86%, according to CME’s FedWatch. Bets had jumped after Friday’s employment report that showed a surge in job growth but also marked an uptick in unemployment.
The central bank is expected to pause cuts in January, after a host of officials last week hinted at a slower pace of monetary policy easing on the back of a resilient economy.
At 5:28 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were down 19 points, or 0.04%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 2 points, or 0.03% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 1.5 points, or 0.01%.
Wall Street’s main indexes closed lower on Monday, pressured by technology stocks whose declines were led by Nvidia after the Chinese market regulator launched an antitrust probe into the AI chip giant. Its shares were down 0.9% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
U.S. equities started their year-end journey on a broadly positive note, with the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq logging gains in their first week, building upon a stellar November after Donald Trump’s win in the presidential election.
The president-elect’s potential policies on tax cuts and looser regulation in the incoming administration are expected to boost corporate performance.
Among premarket movers, Oracle dipped 8.4% after the cloud computing company missed Wall Street estimates for second-quarter results and forecast its third-quarter profit below estimates.
C3. ai climbed 8.6% after the AI software maker raised its forecast for fiscal year 2025 revenue, while software firm MongoDB slipped 3.6% despite raising its forecast for annual results.
(Reporting by Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
