U.S. stock futures turned lower on Thursday as markets assessed a cautious tone from the Federal Reserve in the central bank’s latest interest rate decision. The Fed signaled that it will stick to a wait-and-see approach to further policy moves, as uncertainty around the effects of President Donald Trump’s tariffs clouds the wider economic outlook. Meanwhile, quarterly earnings from a range of companies, including FedEx (NYSE:FDX) and Nike (NYSE:NKE), are due out, and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang tells the Financial Times that the semiconductor titan will shell out hundreds of billions of dollars on U.S.-made chips over the next four years.
U.S. stock futures pointed lower on Thursday, reversing earlier gains, with markets gauging the Fed’s cautious policy stance.
By 06:38 ET (10:38 GMT), the Dow futures contract had decreased by 257 points or 0.6%, S&P 500 futures had fallen by 42 points or 0.7%, and Nasdaq 100 futures had ticked down by 167 points or 0.8%.
The main averages rose in the prior session, as traders lifted their bets for Fed interest rate cuts this year. Investors are now pricing in 68 basis points worth of reductions, up from 56 basis points — or about two quarter-point drawdowns — ahead of the Fed’s announcement.
The Fed also moved to slow down the pace of a drive to shrink the size of its balance sheet, which analysts interpreted as a sign that the central bank is keen to maintain market stability.
However, stocks have yet to claw back recent losses that were sparked by Trump’s tariff threats. The S&P 500 has shed 8% over the past month, and has erased all the gains it notched shortly after Trump was elected to a second term in the White House in November. The spreads between corporate and Treasury bond yields has widened as well, in an indication of the concerns markets have around the tariffs.
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