Fed minutes show faster pace of interest-rate hikes and balance sheet reduction
U.S. stock markets look likely to open with slight gains on Thursday as traders continue to digest the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s March 15-16 meeting.
The minutes, released on Wednesday, show that many Federal Open Market Committee members were open to aggressive 50-basis-point interest-rate hikes in the coming months
According to the minutes, all the policymakers agreed that the Fed will have to adopt a faster pace in reducing its balance sheet than it did during the 2017-’19 period.
“Participants generally agreed that monthly caps of about $60B for Treasury securities and about $35B for agency MBS would likely be appropriate,” the minutes read. However, some of them said they would prefer “relatively high monthly caps or no caps.”
The minutes also revealed that the process of shrinking the balance sheet could begin next month.
At 5:50 a.m. ET, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 66.75 points, or 0.46% to 14,572. Dow futures and S&P 500 futures were unchanged.
HP soars 14% as Warren Buffett’s Berkshire buys $4.2 billion stake
Meanwhile, shares of HP (NYSE: HPQ) rocketed early Thursday after Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) disclosed in regulatory filing late Wednesday that it had bought nearly 121 million shares worth $4.2 billion, for an 11.4% stake.
Berkshire disclosed the stake in a Form 3 filing and a Form 4 filing. The Warren Buffett-led conglomerate is now the biggest shareholder in HP.
The investing giant has been on a buying spree in recent months. In March, Berkshire agreed to acquire the insurer Alleghany (NYSE: Y) for roughly $11.6 billion and recently raised its stake in Occidental (NYSE: OXY) to about 15%.
Shares of HP, a maker of personal computers and printers, were marked $4.90, or 14.04% higher to $39.81 apiece in the premarket trading session.
Jobless claims data on tap
Today’s key economic data releases are weekly jobless claims and February consumer credit figures.
The U.S. Labor Department will publish the jobless claims report at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal expect claims of 200,000 for the week ended April 2, down from 202,000 in the previous week.
Continuing claims for the week ended March 26 are seen coming in at 1.302 million expected, down from 1.307 million during the previous week.
The jobless claims data comes nearly a week after the Labor Department released a solid monthly jobs report, which showed U.S. employers added 431,000 in March while the rate of unemployment rate stood at 3.6%.
