© Reuters
By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening higher Tuesday as investors gear up for the release of the crucial November inflation report as well as the start of the final Federal Reserve policy-setting meeting of the year.
At 07:00 ET (12:00 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 195 points, or 0.6%, S&P 500 Futures traded 20 points, or 0.5%, higher and Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed 65 points, or 0.5%.
The three major averages are seen continuing Monday’s solid gains, bouncing after last week’s hefty selloff, when the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained over 500 points, or 1.6%, the broad-based S&P 500 fell 1.4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 1.3%.
Tuesday’s main event is the release of the report on U.S. consumer prices for November, at 08:30 ET (13:30 GMT), with investors looking for clues as to how high interest rates may ultimately rise as the Federal Reserve attempts to rein in soaring inflation.
The U.S. central bank has raised interest rates by 375 basis points this year, including four consecutive 75 basis point hikes, in the fastest rate-hiking cycle since the 1980s, but is widely expected to slow its interest rate hikes to 50 basis points on Wednesday.
The headline annual rate of inflation is expected to slow to 7.3% from 7.7% the previous month, a monthly rise of 0.3%. The core figure, which excludes the volatile energy and food prices, is seen rising 6.1% on an annual basis, down from 6.3% the previous month, also rising 0.3% on the month.
In the corporate sector, earnings are due from Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB), while Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) will also be in focus after the software stock posted better-than-expected revenue in the second quarter, benefiting from strong demand for its cloud software services and the acquisition of electronic medical records firm Cerner.
Crude oil prices have extended the previous session’s gains on continued concerns about tightening supply as the Keystone pipeline between the U.S. and Canada remained closed.
Keystone has remained shut since a massive leak in the U.S. state of Kansas was reported on Dec. 7, preventing around 620,000 barrels-per-day of Canadian crude from entering the United States, the largest consumer in the world.
The pipeline closure is likely to be reflected in the latest U.S. crude inventories, with the latest numbers from the industry body American Petroleum Institute due later Tuesday ahead of the official data from the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday.
By 07:00 ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.7% higher at $73.68 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 1% to $78.79. Both benchmarks settled up more than 2% in the previous session.
Additionally, gold futures rose 0.3% to $1,798.40/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 1.0543.
