© Reuters
By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks are seen opening higher Tuesday, rebounding after the previous session’s sharp losses ahead of the start of the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting.
At 7 AM ET (1100 GMT), the Dow Futures contract was up 95 points, or 0.3%, S&P 500 Futures traded 17 points, or 0.5%, higher, and Nasdaq 100 Futures climbed 100 points, or 0.9%.
The main indices on Wall Street suffered an intense selloff on Monday, with investors fretting that Friday’s red-hot consumer inflation report will prompt the U.S. central bank to hike interest rates more aggressively than the policymakers had indicated in the past.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 875 points or 2.8%, the broad-based S&P 500 fell 3.9%, slumping into bear market territory, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, which was already in a bear market, closed 4.7% lower.
The Federal Reserve begins its two-day meeting later in the session, and investors have been weighing the idea that it could raise its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, a more severe tightening than its previously suggested plan to raise rates by a half-point in each of June and July.
With this in mind, investors will have a wary eye on the release of the May producer price index, at 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT), which will provide one more data point to measure the progress -- or lack of progress -- on taming inflation.
Analysts expect factory gate prices to have jumped 0.8% from April and 10.9% over the 12 months since last year, while 's May core producer prices, which exclude volatile fuel and food prices, are expected to rise 0.6% for the month and 8.6% for the year.
Earlier in the day German consumer prices jumped to 7.9% in May on an annual basis, from 7.4% in the previous month, while the country’s economic confidence brightened slightly in June, with the ZEW Economic Sentiment Index rising to -28 from -34.3 in May.
In corporate news, Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) stocks traded sharply higher premarket after the tech giant reported better-than-expected quarterly numbers after the close Monday, helped by growth in its infrastructure cloud business.
Oil prices edged higher Tuesday, bouncing after recent losses caused by new COVID cases in China and the prospect of further U.S. monetary tightening weighing on global growth.
Attention later in the session is likely to focus on the release of the weekly U.S. inventory data from the industry body American Petroleum Institute, for clues on how tight crude and fuel supply remain in the world’s largest consumer.
Also of note will be the release of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ monthly report on the oil market, with its forecast for demand out of China of particular note.
By 7 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.9% higher at $122.03 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 1% to $123.48.
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.4% to $1,824.90/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.6% higher at 1.0470.
