Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on July 22, 2024.
Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images
Stock futures rose Wednesday as investors parsed the latest earnings reports and readied for the Federal Reserve monetary policy decision.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 145 points, or 0.4%. S&P 500 futures popped 1%, and Nasdaq-100 futures climbed 1.5%.
Advanced Micro Devices climbed more than 8% as second-quarter results topped consensus forecasts. Artificial intelligence darling Nvidia climbed more than 5% on the back of AMD’s report. Microsoft shares, meanwhile, dropped more than 2% as its cloud business disappointed Wall Street.
Boeing is set to report before the bell Wednesday, while Carvana and Qualcomm are among the names set to report after the close.
Fed decision
The Fed is slated to wrap its two-day policy meeting Wednesday.
The central bank is expected to keep rates steady, but the focus will be on chair Jerome Powell and whether he offers any signs that cuts may be on the near horizon.
“Investors are expecting a strong signal for a September rate cut by the Fed,” said Bryce Doty, senior portfolio manager at Sit Investment Associates. “But it’s difficult for the Fed to sound overly confident on a future rate cut because that will beg the question, ‘Why not cut now?’ Consequently, investors are likely to be disappointed by the tone and posture of the Fed meeting.”
Wall Street is also set to wrap up a choppy month of trading. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are tracking to end July down 0.4% and 3.3%, respectively.
The Dow and Russell 2000 are slated to finish the month higher by more than 4% and 9%, respectively. That underscores the market rotation’s boost to stocks that are smaller and more cyclically oriented.
