U.S. stocks were struggling for direction early Wednesday as investors’ focus shifted from tariffs to monthly inflation data.
There was no fresh news about President Donald Trump’s plans to impose levies, meaning the January consumer price index print will likely be the main story driving the market action. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to publish the January CPI print at 8.30 a.m. Eastern Time. Economists surveyed by FactSet are expecting inflation to be up 2.9% from a year ago.
The reading will show the market whether the Federal Reserve has any scope to lower interest rates this year. Chair Jerome Powell stuck to the script when he kicked off his twice-yearly Congressional testimony, telling the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs that policymakers will take a cautious approach to rate cuts, with inflation still too high and the labor market looking healthy. Powell is set to return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to appear before the House Financial Services Committee.
“There’s an overarching sense of calm in the air, perhaps a little unnerving given the storm of political drama we’ve become accustomed too since Trump took office…All eyes are now on today’s inflation data,” Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman said.
Futures tracking the three blue-chip U.S. indexes were down. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slid 86 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures were also down 0.2%, as were those tied to the Nasdaq 100.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note ticked up 2 basis points to 4.549%, and the WSJ Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against 16 other currencies, climbed 0.1%.
