All eyes on the Fed
U.S. stock futures climbed higher early Wednesday, implying stocks would open higher when the opening bell rings, as traders wait to see whether the Federal Reserve will offer any hints on when it plans to begin tapering its massive pandemic-era stimulus.
The Fed will announce its monetary policy decision at 2 p.m. ET, with chairman Jerome Powell set to speak at 2:30 p.m. ET following the central bank’s two-day meeting.
The Fed’s post-meeting statement, summary of economic projections, dot plot, and Powell news conference will all be closely scrutinized as Wall Street looks for more information around the central bank’s plans to start scaling down its pace of monthly Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases.
At around 5:40 a.m. ET, futures tied to the blue-chip Dow were indicated 153 points, or 0.45% to 33,951.
S&P 500 futures added 18.50 points, or 0.43% to 4,361.75 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures rose 36.50 points, or 0.24% to 15,060.50.
Evergrande unit Hengda to make a coupon payment on its onshore bonds
Hengda Real Estate Group, the main unit of heavily indebted China Evergrande Group (OTC: EGRNY), has reached an agreement with bondholders to settle interest payments on an onshore bond.
In a statement released early Wednesday, Hengda announced that it plans to settle the coupon payment on $36 million of yuan-denominated bond due Thursday.
The unit added that that the bond “has already been resolved through private negotiations,” a move that helped ease worries of an imminent collapse that could shake global financial markets.
Evergrande, China’s second-biggest real estate company, has not announced whether it would meet a $47.5 million payment of a dollar-denominated bond also due on Thursday.
Toast prices IPO above expectations; shares begin trading Wednesday
Toast Inc. is set for a big public debut. The restaurant-technology vendor has priced shares at $40 for its hotly anticipated initial public offering, $4 above the top end of the range the company had previously set.
The new price target implies institutional investors were eager to buy the shares, and the hiked offering raises the amount Toast will raise from the IPO to more than $869 million.
The offering price indicates investors value the Boston-based company at $20 billion.
Toast plans to sell 21.74 million class A shares through the offering, and the stock is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “TOST.”