Wall Street climbed higher in premarket trading Wednesday ahead of a new read on inflation this week,, as well as a public event featuring Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Futures for the S&P 500 and futures for the Dow Jones Industrials each rose 0.4% before the bell.
U.S. markets have been on a tear recently, with the S&P 500 roaring 9% higher this year and on track to close out its fifth straight winning month. Most economic indicators reveal a U.S. economy that remains resilient despite higher interest rates ingended to get inflation under control.
On Friday, the government will report on a measure of inflation that’s closely tracked by the Fed and could play into its next rate policy decision. Later that day, Fed Chair Powell will take part in a webcast discussion of interest-rate policy at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Investors and economists will be looking for clues about when the U.S. central bank might start cutting rates.
Progress on bringing inflation down has become bumpier recently, with reports of costs coming in hotter than expected this year after a rapid pull back in prices in late 2023. Despite that, the broad expectation is for the Federal Reserve to begin cutting its main interest rate in June. There is some speculation that a cut may be announced at the Fed’s next policy meeting in early May.
Rate cuts are expected to give markets a boost, but some analysts say a broader range of companies will need to deliver strong profit growth to justify their big moves in price.
After such a hot streak, there are questions over whether the market has become overvalued in general. This week, Trump Media & Technology Group exploded out of the gate after an initial public offering, though the Truth Social media company has been bleeding money and not gaining a whole lot of users.
Trump Media continued to rise Wednesday, jumping 16.8% before the bell. It’s just the second day of trading for the company under its new ticker, “DJT,” which are the initials of former President Donald Trump. It’s shares climbed more than 16% on Tuesday as well.
The stock’s price has shot well beyond what several experts say is reasonable, driven by excitement about Trump’s latest run for the White House.
In other off-hours trading, video game retailer and original meme stock GameStop tumbled more than 18% after its fourth-quarter sales and profit fell short of Wall Street targets.
Consol Energy, which ships much of its coal through Baltimore, recouped some of its losses yesterday, rising close to 1%. Its shares tumbled about 7% Tuesday after after news broke that a container ship crashed into the Key Bridge in Baltimore’s busy port, bringing it down.
In Asia, Chinese shares slipped even as China’s central bank governor told a high-level business conference in Beijing that the ailing property industry was showing signs of recovery and that the impact from defaults of dozens of developers was limited.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 1.4% to 16,392.84 and the Shanghai Composite index was down 1.3% at 2,993.14.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.9% to 40,762.73 and the S&P/ASX 200 added 0.5% to 7,819.60.
In Bangkok, the SET rose 0.3%. India’s Sensex was up 0.8% and the Taiex in Taiwan closed 0.4% higher.
In Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 edged up 0.3%, while Germany’s DAX added 0.5% and Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.4%.
In other trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 42 cents to $81.20 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 45 cents to $85.18 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar slipped to 151.22 Japanese yen from 151.56 yen. The euro fell to $1.0819 from $1.0833.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 fell 0.3% to 5,203.58, for its third straight modest drop since setting an all-time high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.1% to 39,282.33, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.4% to 16,315.70.
——
Source: post
