Eyes on inflation report
U.S. stock futures were pointing to a higher open on Wednesday, ahead of the release of the Labor Department’s consumer price index (CPI) report for July.
At 5:40 a.m. ET, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 61 points, or 0.19% to 32,798.
Futures on the S&P 500 Index rose 10.5 points, or 0.25% to 4,135 while those on the Nasdaq 100 Index gained 46.75 points, or 0.36% to 0.07% to 13,553.
The Labor Department will publish inflation data at 8:30 a.m. ET.
CPI, which measures the change in the price of goods and services from consumers’ perspective, is projected to have registered a 0.5% gain in July in comparison to a 0.7% gain in June.
Core CPI, which measures the changes in the price of goods and services, excluding food and energy, is likely to have gained 6.1% in July from June’s 5.9%.
Elon Musk offloads 7.92 million Tesla shares worth $6.88 billion
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has sold $6.9 billion worth of shares in the company, according to regulatory filings published Tuesday.
Musk sold about 7.92 million shares on August 5, the filings showed.
The tech billionaire said he could use the funds to finance a potential Twitter deal if he loses a legal fight with the microblogging platform.
“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk said in a tweet late on Tuesday.
Musk terminated an agreement to take Twitter private for $44 billion, claiming the company had made “misleading representations” over the number of fake/spam accounts on the site.
Twitter later filed a lawsuit to force Musk to complete the deal, and a trial has been set for October.
As of writing, Twitter stock was marked 4.25% to $44.65 a share in the premarket trading session.
Disney earnings on tap
Meanwhile, Disney (DIS) will today report earnings for its fiscal third quarter, which ended June.
It’s widely expected the Burbank, California-based entertainment giant will post solid performance from its theme parks segment and a slowdown in its Disney+ streaming service.
Analysts expect Disney to announce earnings of 94 cents per share on revenue of $21.12 billion after the closing bell.
In terms of Disney+ subscribers, analysts are predicting total global customers for the service to stand at about 147 million.
Disney shares were little changed in the premarket trading session.