Key insights
- U.S. equity futures showed little change as traders awaited Federal Reserve interest rate decisions and Big Tech earnings. Broadcom's announcement of a $63 billion financing deal for chip leasing to Anthropic boosted chip stocks, with Broadcom, AMD, and Micron Technology seeing gains. The market also reacted to lower oil prices. Focus is shifting to AI trade with upcoming earnings from Alphabet and Microsoft.
U.S. equity futures were little changed on Tuesday evening as investors await earnings reports from megacap technology companies and a rate policy decision from the Federal Reserve due Wednesday.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5 points, or 0.01%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq-100 futures were also hovering near the flat mark.
In Tuesday’s regular trading, the major averages ended the session higher. Chip stocks rose again, this time powered by an announcement from Broadcom that a group of banks would provide $63 billion in financing to buy the company’s chips and networking solutions to be leased to Anthropic, the company behind Claude. Broadcom rose 4%, while Advanced Micro Devices climbed 5.5% and Micron Technology rose 2.8%.
Those moves led the Nasdaq Composite to rise 1.2% on the session.
Stocks were also supported by lower oil prices, which fell following news that Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei met with the nation’s top security official Mohsen Rezaei to discuss conditions for ending the war with the U.S.
On Wednesday, though, focus will turn to domestic monetary policy as the Fed wraps up its two-day policy meeting. The central bank is widely predicted to keep interest rates steady at a target rate range of 3.75% to 4%. Policymakers raised rates by a quarter percentage point at their September meeting.
According to CME’s FedWatch tool, there’s a roughly 92% chance that the Fed maintains the current interest rate, but some expect that Chairman Kevin Warsh will signal that more hikes are coming in future policy meetings. The decision on interest rates will be announced at 2:00 p.m. ET.
After the bell on Wednesday, though, investors will turn their focus to the AI trade, as “Magnificent Seven” giants Alphabet and Microsoft will kick off Big Tech earnings.
Tech stocks, particularly those with exposure to the AI buildout, have struggled in recent weeks amid questions over the technology’s financing. However, Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. equity strategist, Mike Wilson, thinks that the recent recovery in tech stocks is a sign that trend may be nearing its end.
“Most of the correction is already over,” he said in an appearance on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Tuesday. “We’ve been in correction mode for four or five months.... the market I think has digested this very efficiently.”