By Amruta Khandekar
(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures dipped on Wednesday after several Federal Reserve policymakers made the case for faster interest rate hikes to bring down high inflation.
Investors are now awaiting more data to determine whether the U.S. economy can withstand hefty rate hikes. Data on Tuesday showed U.S. consumer confidence dropped to a 16-month low in June on worries about high inflation and growing risks of a recession.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell is due to speak at a European Central Bank forum later in the day. His comments will be parsed for any change in the Fed’s hawkish stance on tackling inflation.
Markets also digested a report that said Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester advocated for another 75 basis points (bps) interest rate hike in the U.S. central bank’s July meeting, if economic conditions remain the same.
San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and New York Fed President John Williams on Tuesday backed further rapid interest rate hikes and pushed back against fears that sharply higher borrowing costs will trigger a steep downturn.
The benchmark S&P 500 was on track for its biggest drop in the first half of a year since 1970, and along with the Dow and the Nasdaq was headed towards a second straight quarterly decline for the first time since 2015.
The Department of Commerce will release its final estimates for first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) at 8:30 am ET, expected to show a 1.5% annualized fall in GDP.
At 7:00 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 28 points, or 0.09%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 8.25 points, or 0.22%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 34.5 points, or 0.3%.
Shares of Tesla led declines among growth stocks, including Apple Inc, Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc which fell between 0.5% and 1.5% in premarket trading.
Pinterest Inc gained 3.2% after the social media platform said former Alphabet Inc executive, Bill Ready would replace its long-time chief executive officer who is stepping down.
(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
