Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
New York Stock Exchange
Stock futures were close to flat Thursday night as investors analyzed the new batch of corporate earnings and tried to look beyond the latest inflation reading.
Linked futures contracts Dow Jones Industrial Average Lost 10 pips, trading near the flat line. Standard & Poor's 500 futures And Nasdaq 100 futures Both haven't changed much.
In business after hours, software provider Adobe Declined approximately 10% due to weak sales guidance. Beauty stock Ulta It fell more than 6% after full-year earnings forecasts largely disappointed analysts.
The moves come on the heels of a losing day on Wall Street. the Dao It fell more than 100 points, or about 0.4%, snapping a three-day winning streak. the Standard & Poor's 500 And Nasdaq Both of them fell by about 0.3%.
Thursday's decline came after the February producer price index, a measure of inflation for wholesalers, rose more than economists had expected. Bond yields rose in the session – along with the index Treasury for 10 years It reached 4.29% – as investors wondered whether recent economic data was too strong for the Fed to ease monetary policy.
Federal Reserve funds futures are almost certainly pricing in a 99% probability that the central bank will keep interest rates unchanged at its policy meeting next week, according to the CME FedWatch tool. Mark Lucchini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott, said recent economic releases may cast doubt on whether the Fed feels inflation has slowed enough to begin lowering levels later this year.
“The path to a 2% target rate, at least recently, has been anything but linear,” Luschini said. “I think that's just enough…to curb the enthusiasm of market participants, if you will.”
Luchini warned that declines like the one on Thursday could also be considered normal after recent gains. Despite the decline, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 are still on track to end the week up about 0.5%, while the Nasdaq is on track to add 0.3%. All three are also higher year over year.
On Friday morning, investors will watch economic data on topics such as consumer confidence, import prices and industrial production.
