Eyes of FOMC meeting minutes
U.S. stock futures were pointing to a modestly higher opening for the main stock indices on Wednesday morning, ahead of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s meeting in June.
The central bank kept interest rates unchanged at zero to 0.25% – where they have stayed since March 2020 – and pledged to maintain its $120 billion monthly bond-buying program until “substantial further progress” had been made on inflation and employment.
But the minutes from the meeting, due to be released later in the day, will likely reveal policymakers views on the U.S. economy and how much of a push there was for a rate hike.
By 5:30 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue-chip Dow were marked 36 points, or 0.10% higher to 34,496. S&P 500 futures jumped 6.88 points, or 0.16% to 4,340.88 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 gained 66 points, or 0.45% to 14,841.50.
DOD cancels $10 billion JEDI contract
The U.S. Department of Defense has canceled the $10 billion cloud contract that sparked a legal battle between Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and (NASDAQ: AMZN).
In a press release Tuesday, the department said the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, also known as JEDI, became irrelevant because of industry advances, evolving requirements, and increased cloud conversancy.
Amazon Web Services was seen as the frontrunner for the contract before former President Donald Trump’s administration awarded it to Microsoft in 2019. But the AWS unit filed a lawsuit arguing the decision was influenced by Trump’s animus against Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos.
The DOD said it’s now considering a new multivendor contract known as the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability and intends to solicit proposals from both Microsoft and Amazon as they are the only cloud service providers that can meet its needs.
It however added that it will continue to do more research to see if more cloud providers including Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) can bid for the new contract.
Crude rallies as OPEC+ crisis drags on
Crude futures were also in the green territory early Wednesday after falling Tuesday amid worries that the recently abandoned OPEC+ meeting could lead to a resumption of the price war that traders witnessed last year.
Last week, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, failed to reach a deal on production policy beyond July, a move that could tighten the global market further.
The meeting was called off after the United Arab Emirates reportedly rejected a proposal to extend production curbs by eight months, claiming that other members are also not happy with the proposal that it says favors Saudi Arabia and Russia.
As of 5:30 a.m. ET, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up $1.06, or 1.44% to $74.43 per barrel. International Brent crude futures rose 97 cents, or 1.3% to $75.50 per barrel.
