Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 17, 2024.
U.S. stock futures were higher on Wednesday morning as traders looked ahead to the Federal Reserve's December interest rate decision.
Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 133 points, or 0.3%. On Tuesday, the Dow slipped 267.58 points, or 0.61%, for a nine-day losing streak, its longest since 1978. If the Dow were to fall for a 10th day on Wednesday, it would be its worst losing streak since an 11-day slide in 1974.
S&P 500 futures added 0.3%, while Nasdaq 100 futures inched up 0.2%.
The Dow's worst funk in 46 years was mostly caused by a rotation out of old economy shares and into technology stocks, a sector that the century-old measure underweights compared to broader market metrics. Despite the streak, the Dow sits less than 4% from an-all time high. Other measures of the market are doing fine this month with the S&P 500 in the green for December and sitting about 1% from an all-time high. The Nasdaq is up 4.6% this month as investors flooded into to tech shares, while shunning the Dow.
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The Fed's policy decision is due at 2:00 p.m. ET. Fed funds futures trading currently shows a 95% chance that the central bank will cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Investors will also be paying close attention to Fed policymakers' Summary of Economic Projections and Fed Chair Jerome Powell's press conference, seeking clues about what might happen in the months ahead. The central bank is widely expected to temper expectations of more rate cuts in the approaching year, particularly as inflation remains stubborn.
"I think we'll get a cut ... but I think the language and the tenor will probably be as hawkish as we've seen from Powell in a while," said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird. "While they're not going to act on policy that hasn't yet been made, I think that they will be a little hesitant to commit to, say, four-plus rate cuts in 2025 when there's so much unsettled."
Money Report
In turn, hawkish commentary on Wednesday could tee up stocks for a selloff. But Mayfield added he was optimistic that volatility around Fed meetings usually doesn't linger for very long.
"We've seen some big moves on days where the Fed has announced a policy change and how it spoke — and these were either reversed later on, or gains were given back or losses cut later on. So I'm not overly worried about what happens in the immediate aftermath tomorrow," he added.
Nvidia, which fell into correction territory earlier this week, was bouncing in premarket trading Wednesday, up nearly 3%. Nvidia entered the Dow last month. Broadcom, the chip stock seeing big inflows this month as investors dumped Nvidia, was lower in early trading Wednesday.
Mortgage demand drops for the first time in 5 weeks
Mortgage rates moved markedly higher last week, causing overall mortgage demand to drop.
Total application volume fell 0.7% compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's seasonally adjusted index. That was the first decline in five weeks.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) increased to 6.75% from 6.67%, with points remaining unchanged at 0.66 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment. That rate was just 8 basis points higher the same week one year ago.
The driver of the drop was refinance demand. It fell 3% for the week but was still 41% higher than the same week one year ago. While mortgage rates aren't that much lower now than they were a year ago, it may be that refinance volume is so low in general that any slight move makes for a large comparison.
— Diana Olick
Market performance on Fed days has been weakest under Chair Powell, Bespoke Investment Group says
Market performance on Fed days has been weakest during Powell's tenure as chair, as compared to the three other Fed chairs coming before him, according to a tweet from Bespoke Investment Group. The tweet added that this statistic was especially true in the last trading hour of the day.
On average, the S&P 500 rose just 0.11% under Powell. Under Yellen, the S&P 500 averaged a 0.16% rise, while this rose to 0.26% under Greenspan's tenure. Market performance on Fed days was at its highest under Bernanke's tenure, averaging a 0.50% advance.
— Lisa Kailai Han
Ten out of 11 sectors ended Tuesday's session negative
Ten of the 11 GICS sectors ended Tuesday in the red, led to the downside by industrials, which slipped 0.9%.
On the other hand, the consumer discretionary sector was the only one to end the day higher and gained 0.28%.
All sectors are still positive for the year, led by communication services, up 44.08%. Health care, which has added just 1.73%, is the laggard.
— Lisa Kailai Han, Christopher Hayes
Stocks futures are little changed
Stock futures traded near flat Tuesday night.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were all marginally below the flatline shortly after 6 p.m. ET.
— Lisa Kailai Han
