All eyes on Fed monetary policy decision
U.S. stock futures were trading cautiously on Wednesday morning as market participants looked to the Federal Reserve and today’s interest rate decision at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Markets widely expect the Fed to keep interest rates on hold at near zero and pledge to keep buying bonds after concluding its two-day meeting that kicked off yesterday. Policymakers are also set to release projections for their three-year outlook for the U.S. economy.
Fed boss Jerome Powell will hold a virtual news conference at 2:30 pm ET. He is expected to say that the economy is still in need of extraordinary help despite recent signs of a possible recovery, including the stellar May jobs report.
By 5:30 a.m. ET, the blue-chip Dow futures shed 41 points to 27,223. S&P 500 futures were down 0.88 points to 3,204.62 while the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures indicated a gain of 31.62 points, or 0.32% to 9,982.62.
Dun & Bradstreet kicks off bid to become public again, may raise $1 billion
Dun & Bradstreet filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public Tuesday after agreeing to become private in late 2018.
The business analytics firm intends to raise $1 billion and list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DNB. Dun & Bradstreet was taken private by an investor consortium led by shareholders CC Capital Management, Cannae Holdings and Black Knight.
Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) and Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) are the joint bookrunners on the deal.
Crude futures lower ahead of U.S. inventories data
Crude futures were lower on Wednesday morning ahead of the release of the official weekly crude oil stockpiles data at 10:30 a.m. ET. Analysts expect inventories to drop by 1.74 million barrels for the week ending June 5 versus a drop of just over 2 million barrels the previous week.
As of 5:30 a.m. ET, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $37.95 a barrel, down 99 cents, or 2.54%. International Brent crude futures were down 88 cents, or 2.14% to $40.30 a barrel.