All eyes on Fed decision
Wall Street looks set to open slightly higher on Wednesday as traders await the outcome of a U.S. Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting. The central bank is scheduled to announce its latest interest rate decision at the conclusion of the meeting later today.
Analysts largely expect the Fed to make a dovish statement and hold rates steady in a band of 0% to 0.25%. The bank announces its decision at 2 p.m. ET and chairman Jerome Powell holds a press briefing at 2:30 p.m. ET.
By 5:55 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue chip Dow futures indicated a gain of 11 points to 26,308. The S&P 500 futures rose 5.62 points, or 3,218.62 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures were up 48.25 points to 10,588.25.
Boeing, Spotify, Qualcomm earnings on tap
Today earnings calendar includes Boeing (NYSE: BA), General Motors (NYSE: GM), General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), General Motors (NYSE: GM), Spotify Technology (NYSE:SPOT), and Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) ahead of the opening bell.
Analysts expect Boeing to report a loss of $2.56 per share on revenue of $13.40 billion. General Electric is projected to announce a loss of 10 cents per share on revenue of $17.15 billion, while Spotify is seen reporting a loss of 42 cents per share on revenue of $1.93 billion.
Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), Paypal (NASDAQ: PYPL), and Vale (NYSE:VALE) will post their results after the market close. Analysts expect Qualcomm to come out with earnings of 70 cents per share on revenue of $4.80 billion.
Big tech chiefs to testify before Congress today
Meanwhile, the CEOs of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG), and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) are set to testify in front of House lawmakers today to prove that their powerful businesses don’t represent a monopolistic force in the sector.
Tim Cook of Apple, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon will all appear remotely before the House Judiciary’s antitrust panel. This will be the first time Bezos is appearing before lawmakers.
The antitrust hearing, which caps a 13-month probe by the House subcommittee, is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. ET.
