Stock futures fall ahead of busy week of earnings, Fed meeting


Stock futures traded lower on Monday morning as investors braced for a week of key corporate earnings and a possible rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 102 points, or about 0.3%. S&P 500 futures ticked down 0.34%, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.41%.
Wall Street is coming off a winning week as the stock market’s January rally continued. The Nasdaq Composite rose 4.3% for the week, while the S&P 500 and Dow gained 2.5% and 1.8%, respectively.
There are more tests this week for this 2023 rally. A busy part of the corporate earnings season includes reports from McDonald’s and General Motors on Tuesday followed by tech giants Apple, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Alphabet later in the week.
The Federal Open Market Committee meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, when the Fed is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point. Investors will be looking for clues about how much higher the central bank will raise interest rates in the fight against inflation.
“Inflation has shocked the Fed to the upside; they need to be careful not to inadvertently cut rates too soon. Don’t buy into this gobbledygook about a couple of rate cuts being priced into December. For now, the Fed is just helping it along highly unlikely event of a crash landing,” David Zervos, market strategist at Jefferies, said in a note to clients.