© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., November 17, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures rose on Wednesday as investors remained optimistic about an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve next year, and multi-month lows in Treasury yields that boosted sentiment.
Wall Street indexes ended marginally higher on Tuesday after some positive commentary from the Fed, while upbeat consumer data provided some lift.
Fed Governor Christopher Waller, deemed a hawk, on Tuesday hinted at lower interest rates in the months ahead if inflation continued to ease, while Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee voiced concerns about keeping interest rates “too high for too long.”
The remarks sent U.S. Treasury yields to multi-month lows, with the benchmark 10-year note last standing at 4.2956%. [US/]
“This was the first time a Fed official discussed the possibility of a cut, and that’s maybe why market participants ignored comments by Governor Bowman that higher rates may be needed in order to bring inflation back down to the 2% objective,” said Charalampos Pissouros, senior investment analyst at XM in a note.
Fed Governor Michelle Bowman on Tuesday alluded to the possibility of another rate hike.
While a pause in rate hike in the upcoming December meeting has been almost fully priced in, money markets now see a nearly 73% chance of at least a 25-basis point rate cut in May 2024, up from about 65% a day earlier, according to CME Group’s (NASDAQ:) FedWatch tool.
Megacap stocks edged higher in premarket trading, with Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:), Nvidia (NASDAQ:) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:) up between 0.5% and 0.8%.
Tesla (NASDAQ:) added 1.0%, and was on course to rise for the fourth straight session.
Traders are awaiting the second estimate of the U.S. GDP, expected later in the day, and the release of the “Beige Book”, a snapshot of the U.S. economy, at 2:00 p.m. ET, for further cues on how the economy is faring under restrictive monetary conditions.
Focus would also be on any policy comments from Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin, who is slated for an interview at 10:00 a.m. ET.
Preliminary numbers for the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) index – the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge- is also due later in the day, ahead of the final numbers on Thursday.
At 5:42 a.m. ET, were up 102 points, or 0.29%, were up 15 points, or 0.33%, and were up 71.5 points, or 0.45%.
Among single stocks, CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ:) added 1.5% before the bell as the firm forecast fourth-quarter revenue above street estimates, driven by resilient demand for its cybersecurity offerings.
Okta (NASDAQ:) slid 6.4% after the cybersecurity firm said that hackers stole information on all users of its customer support system in a network breach two months ago.
NetApp (NASDAQ:) jumped 12.6% after the cloud-based data management platform raised its annual profit forecast on resilient demand for its cloud-based data solutions.
