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Investors traded warily on Tuesday ahead of the release of January inflation data.
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Wall Street expects the Consumer Price Index to drop below 3% for the first time in over two years.
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Stock futures were slightly down, and the 10-year Treasury yield and dollar index barely budged.
There was a wary mood in markets on Tuesday, as investors waited anxiously for the release of US inflation data for January.
US stock futures were in the red shortly after 5 a.m. ET. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dipped by 0.2%, S&P 500 futures fell 0.3%, and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.4%.
The 10-year Treasury yield was virtually unmoved at 4.18%, and the US dollar index was up about 0.1%.
Wall Street expects the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to come in at 2.9%, marking its first sub-3% reading since March 2021.
The pace of annualized price growth moving closer to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target could pave the way for the US central bank to cut interest rates within months, easing pressure on the economy and reducing the risk of a recession.
The Fed raised its benchmark rate from nearly zero to more than 5% in under 18 months to clamp down on inflation, which spiked as high as 9.1% — a 40-year high — in the summer of 2022.
“Headline inflation in the US is expected to fall below 3% in January,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote bank, said in a morning note.
“A softer-than-expected set of data will likely boost the May rate cut expectation, keep the dollar index below the 100-day moving average and support equities,” she continued. “An unwanted upward surprise, however, should further hammer the May cut expectations and shift focus to June.”
Several high-profile companies are due to release fourth-quarter earnings reports today, including Airbnb, Shopify, and Coca-Cola.
Investors have more data releases to look forward to this week. Initial jobless claims, retail sales, and the Empire State Manufacturing Survey are all scheduled for Thursday.
Read the original article on Business Insider
