Futures Pointing To Positive Start On Wall Street

With the index futures climbing higher after moving along the flat line, U.S. stocks look headed for a positive start Tuesday morning. The focus is on earnings, and a slew of economic data including reports on consumer price and producer price inflation, due later in the week.

The Dow futures is up 0.15 percent, the S&P futures are gaining 0.4 percent, and the Nasdaq futures are up nearly 0.5 percent.

Investors are gearing up for the earnings season. PepsiCo announced that its bottom line came in at $2.930 billion, or $2.13 per share, compared with $3.092 billion, or $2.24 per share in last year’s third quarter. The numbers, however, beat the Street estimates.

Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase are scheduled to announce their quarterly results this week.

On the economic front, trade data for the month of August is due at 8:30 AM ET.

Markets are also likely to closely track the movement of Hurricane Milton. According to National Hurricane Center Miami’s latest public advisory, while fluctuations in intensity are expected, Milton is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane through landfall in Florida.

The center of Milton is forecast to move just north of the Yucatan Peninsula today and approach the west coast of the Florida Peninsula on Wednesday.

A few tornadoes are possible over central and southern Florida beginning late tonight and continuing through Wednesday night.

Wall Street ended weak on Monday amid easing prospects of aggressive rate cuts by the Federal Reserve following a much higher than expected addition in U.S. non-payroll employment in the month of September.

The major averages all closed notably lower. The Dow tumbled 398.51 points or 0.94 percent to 41,954.24, the S&P 500 closed down 55.13 points or 0.96 percent at 5,695.94, while the Nasdaq recorded a more pronounced drop, falling by 213.95 points or 1.18 percent to settle at 17,923.90.

In overseas trading, Asian stocks declined on Tuesday, with Hong Kong markets leading regional losses as China’s National Development and Reform Commission pledged more measures to boost the Chinese economy but gave little in the way of details.

The dollar consolidated near a seven-week high while gold edged down slightly after a Federal Reserve official urged a cautious path on interest-rate cuts.

Investors looked ahead of key U.S. inflation readings and the release of the Fed’s latest meeting minutes this week for additional clues on the Fed’s rate trajectory.

The major European markets are weak with stocks falling to two-week lows amid persisting worries about Middle East tensions. Also, a lack of new plans for major stimulus in China hurts as well.

In commodities, West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures are down $1.70 or 2.19 percent at 75.44 a barrel. Gold futures are gaining $4.50 or 0.17 percent at $2,670.50 an ounce.