Futures rise on optimism around Fed; FedEx results shine

[September 16, 2020]  By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Wednesday as investors hoped for a pledge by the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low for a prolonged period, with upbeat quarterly results from FedEx also boosting sentiment.

A man walks a dog in the shade away from the midday sun past the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) building in Manhattan, during hot weather in New York City, New York, U.S., August 11, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

The central bank's two-day meeting is its first under a newly adopted framework that promises to shoot for inflation above 2% to make up for periods where it is running below that target.

The Federal Open Market Committee will release its policy statement and economic projections at 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT), followed by Fed Chair Jerome Powell's virtual news briefing half an hour later.

Wall Street's main indexes have bounced after a tech-driven slump last week that pushed the Nasdaq Composite index <.IXIC> into correction territory in just three sessions.

After declining for two weeks in a row, the benchmark S&P 500 <.SPX> has rebounded 1.8% in the past two sessions, with defensive sectors including real estate <.SPLRCR> and utilities <.SPLRCU> among the biggest gainers.

At 6:41 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis <1YMcv1> were up 103 points, or 0.37%, S&P 500 e-minis <EScv1> were up 16 points, or 0.47%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis <NQcv1> were up 56 points, or 0.49%.

Delivery firm FedEx Corp <FDX.N> jumped 10% in premarket trading after reporting a bigger-than-expected quarterly profit, helped in part by price hikes and lower fuel costs.

Shares in rival United Parcel Service Inc <UPS.N> gained 4.6%.

Apple Inc <AAPL.O> rose 0.7%, after ending the previous session just marginally higher, as it rolled out a new virtual fitness service and a bundle of all its subscriptions, Apple One.

Other tech-related stocks including Alphabet Inc <GOOGL.O>, Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O>, Tesla Inc <TSLA.O> and Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O> gained between 0.6% and 1.0%.

Investors are also awaiting retail sales data for August, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, with expectations of a reading of 1.0% compared with July's figures of 1.2%.

(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

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