LDN - Business

Futures gain as investors cheer rate cut prospects

[November 29, 2023] By Shristi Achar A and Amruta Khandekar

(Reuters) -U.S. stock index futures rose on Wednesday as Treasury yields slipped to multi-month lows on growing optimism about an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve next year.

Wall Street indexes ended marginally higher on Tuesday after Fed Governor Christopher Waller, deemed a hawk, hinted at lower interest rates in the months ahead if inflation continued to ease.

Other similar positive comments sent Treasury yields tumbling, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note last at an over two-month low of 4.2840%. [US/]

"This was the first time a Fed official discussed the possibility of a cut, and that's maybe why market participants ignored comments by Governor Bowman that higher rates may be needed in order to bring inflation back down to the 2% objective," said Charalampos Pissouros, senior investment analyst at XM in a note.

Fed Governor Michelle Bowman on Tuesday alluded to the possibility of another rate hike.

The drop in yields lifted megacap stocks, with Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet up between 0.4% and 1.4% in premarket trading.

Money market participants have fully priced in a pause in rate hike in the upcoming December meeting, while bets of rate cuts starting as early as March have gone up to 40.6% from 34.6% a day earlier, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool.

Traders are awaiting the second estimate of the U.S. GDP, expected later in the day, and the release of the "Beige Book", a snapshot of the U.S. economy, at 2:00 p.m. ET, for further cues on how the economy is faring under restrictive monetary conditions.

Focus would also be on any policy comments from Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin, who is slated for an interview at 10:00 a.m. ET.

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Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., November 17, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

Preliminary numbers for the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) index - the Fed's preferred inflation gauge- is also due later in the day, ahead of the final numbers on Thursday.

At 6:56 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 109 points, or 0.31%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 18.25 points, or 0.4%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 85.25 points, or 0.53%.

Among single stocks, General Motors rose 6.4% before the bell as the automaker said it will buy back $10 billion in shares and boost its dividend by 33%.

Dollar Tree slid 1.8% after the retailer trimmed its full-year sales forecast.

CrowdStrike Holdings added 2.9% as the firm forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Street estimates, driven by resilient demand for its cybersecurity offerings.

Okta slid 6.3% after the cybersecurity firm said that hackers stole information on all users of its customer support system in a network breach two months ago.

NetApp jumped 11.0% after the cloud-based data management platform raised its annual profit forecast on resilient demand for its cloud-based data solutions.

(Reporting by Shristi Achar A and Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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