U.S. stock index futures were muted on Tuesday as investors waited for a key inflation report later this week that could sway the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions at its meeting this month. The November consumer price index, due on Wednesday, is one of the last major economic reports before the Fed’s Dec. 17-18 meeting.
Economists expect the data to show a small uptick in inflation in November. According to CME’s FedWatch tool, traders are betting there is over an 86% chance the Fed will raise interest rates by another 25 basis points next week. Those odds jumped after Friday’s jobs report showed strong job growth but also a rise in unemployment.
Fed officials have recently signaled they may slow the pace of rate hikes given signs of a resilient economy. The central bank is widely expected to pause rate increases in January. At 5:28 a.m. ET, Dow futures slipped 19 points, or 0.04%.
Awaiting key inflation report
S&P 500 futures dipped 2 points, or 0.03%, while Nasdaq 100 futures inched up 1.5 points, or 0.01%. The major indexes closed lower on Monday, weighed down by tech stocks.
Nvidia led the declines after Chinese regulators launched an antitrust probe into the AI chipmaker. Nvidia shares fell another 0.9% in premarket trading Tuesday. U.S. stocks have started the year-end period mostly higher, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq posting gains last week, extending a strong November.
Investors are hopeful that policies from President-elect Donald Trump, such as tax cuts and deregulation, will boost corporate profits. In individual stock moves, Oracle dropped 8.4% in premarket trading after the cloud computing firm missed analysts’ estimates for second-quarter earnings and gave a weaker-than-expected profit forecast for the current quarter. AI software company C3.ai jumped 8.6% after raising its revenue outlook for fiscal 2025.
But software maker MongoDB slid 3.6% despite lifting its annual forecast.
