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U.S. equity futures were mixed early Wednesday as investors await earnings reports from mega-cap technology companies and a rate policy decision from the Federal Reserve due Wednesday.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials waned 110 points, or 0.2%, early Wednesday to 52,469.
Futures for the S&P 500 docked nine points, or 0.1%, to 7,767.50
Futures for the NASDAQ Composite gained 105 points, or 0.4%, at 29,922.
U.S. chipmakers moved higher in premarket trade, buoyed by SK Hynix posting record quarterly profit. Micron Technology was up 3.48%, with ARM Holdings advancing 1.84%. Intel rose 1.37%, Marvell added 1.21% and Advanced Micro Devices gained 1.17%.
In Tuesday’s regular U.S. trading, the major averages ended the session higher. The NASDAQ Composite rose 1.2% as chip stocks were up, this time powered by an announcement from Broadcom that a group of banks would provide $63 billion in financing to buy the company’s chips and networking solutions to be leased to Anthropic, the company behind Claude.
Broadcom rose 4%, while Advanced Micro Devices climbed 5.5% and Micron Technology rose 2.8%.
Stocks were also supported by lower oil prices, which fell following news that Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei met with the nation’s top security official Mohsen Rezaei to discuss conditions for ending the war with the U.S.
On Wednesday, though, focus will turn to domestic monetary policy as the Fed wraps up its two-day policy meeting. The central bank is widely predicted to keep interest rates steady at a target rate range of 3.75% to 4%. Policymakers raised rates by a quarter percentage point at their September meeting.
According to CME’s FedWatch tool, there’s a roughly 92% chance that the Fed maintains the current interest rate, but some expect that Chairman Kevin Warsh will signal that more hikes are coming in future policy meetings. The decision on interest rates will be announced at 2:00 p.m. ET.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 climbed 1.1% Wednesday, while in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng gained 0.2%.
Oil prices took on $1.64 to $101.54 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices dumped $15.10 to $4,059.50 U.S an ounce.
