Wall Street held near its records in premarket trading Tuesday as traders digested the latest corporate earnings reports while waiting for fresh cues about interest rates from the Federal Reserve.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were each off about 0.1% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 0.1%.
This week will bring updates from the head of the Federal Reserve and from some of the biggest U.S. retailers.
Home Depot shares held steady Tuesday after the home improvement chain reaffirmed its previous full-year guidance even as its second-quarter sales and profit came in a touch lighter than analysts forecast. The company said homeowners have been focused on smaller home repairs while putting off bigger projects because of increased borrowing costs and lingering concerns about inflation.
Target and Lowe's report their latest results on Wednesday, followed by retail bellwether Walmart on Thursday.
Palo Alto Networks jumped 6.3% overnight after the cybersecurity company beat Wall Street's sales and profit forecasts. The California company also announced the retirement of Nir Zuk, its founder, chief technology officer and board member.
Nexstar Media Group climbed 9% in premarket trading after the owner of local television broadcasters said it was buying Tegna, another regional TV station owner, for $6.2 billion. The companies said combining will give them a broader reach and allow them to better compete with Big Tech and legacy media. Shares of Tegna, which split from Gannett a decade ago, rose about 5% before the bell.
On Friday, the focus will swing to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which has been the home in past years of many big policy announcements from the Fed. There, Fed Chair Jerome Powell will give a speech, and investors are hoping that he's changed his mind since saying last month that he wanted to wait longer before cutting interest rates.
The Fed’s twin jobs are to keep the job market healthy while also maintaining a lid on inflation, and helping one can often hurt the other in the short term. Lower rates can boost the economy by making it cheaper for U.S. households and businesses to borrow to buy houses, cars or equipment, for example, but they also risk worsening inflation.
Inflation updates have been mixed, but traders are expecting the Fed to cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at its next meeting in September. The hope is that Powell could give a nod to that.
Germany’s DAX gained 0.2%, the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.8% and Britain’s FTSE was 0.4% higher.
In Asian trading, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index lost 0.2% as market heavyweight SoftBank Group Corp. fell 4% after it announced it was taking a $2 billion stake in U.S. computer chip maker Intel.
Intel gained 5.2% in pre-market trading Tuesday.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng shed 0.2%, while the Shanghai Composite index edged less than 0.1% lower.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.7% and in Seoul, the Kospi gave up 0.8%.
Taiwan's Taiex fell 0.5% and the Sensex in India was up 0.4%. In Bangkok, the SET slipped 0.1%.
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