Fed’s minutes eyed
U.S. stock futures were little changed early Wednesday, as traders awaited the Federal Reserve to publish the minutes of last month’s FOMC meeting, which could provide more details about what policymakers were thinking about inflation and the central bank’s massive bond-buying program.
The Fed will release the minutes of the meeting today at 2 p.m. ET.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the central bank signaled that interest rates will remain unchanged until 2024, despite the accelerated vaccination program and trillions in spending from Congress.
Dow Jones futures, along with S&P 500 futures and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures were flat as of 5:40 a.m. ET.
Bezos endorses Biden’s tax hike plan
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) founder and outgoing CEO Jeff Bezos supports President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan and the corporate tax rate hike included in the plan.
“We support the Biden Administration’s focus on making bold investments in American infrastructure,” Bezos said in a statement posted to the company corporate blog site.
“We recognize this investment will require concessions from all sides — both on the specifics of what’s included as well as how it gets paid for (we’re supportive of a rise in the corporate tax rate),” he added.
Last week, Biden lashed out at Amazon for using “various loopholes where they pay not a single solitary penny in federal income tax.”
The president has proposed raising the U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% to help pay for his plan.
Coinbase reports record $1.8 billion revenue ahead of IPO
Coinbase expects to report profit of $730 million to $800 million for the first three months of the year, more than twice what it earned in all of 2020, the company announced in a press release late Tuesday.
The cryptocurrency brokerage said it likely generated revenue of $1.8 billion in the first quarter, well above 2020’s annual total of $1.3 billion.
The company is planning to go make its market debut on Wednesday, April 17 but it will be doing so through a direct listing. It is set to list its shares on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker “COIN.”
Coinbase is making its market debut at a time when cryptos are trading around record highs, with Ethereum topping $2,000 and Bitcoin having recently hit $60,000.
