Wall Street’s three main indexes were set to open higher 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 4.3090%.
The drop in yields on fixed-income investments, which make stocks more attractive, lifted megacap stocks, with Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet up between 0.6% and 1.2% in premarket trading.
“Markets are starting to adjust to the idea that there will indeed be a soft landing and that lower interest rates or stable interest rates will prevail throughout 2024,” said Peter Andersen, founder of Andersen Capital Management in Boston.
Andersen said that strong GDP figures, the second estimate released earlier in the day, add to the soft landing narrative - where the Fed manages to avoid a recession - and will support a strong year-end rally.
The latest GDP data showed the U.S. economy in the third quarter grew faster than initially thought.
Wall St subdued as traders watch for policy cues from Fed speakers
Traders are now awaiting the release of the “Beige Book”, a snapshot of the U.S. economy, at 2:00 p.m. ET, and the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) index - Fed’s preferred inflation gauge- due on Thursday, 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’s interview at 10:00 a.m. ET.
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 44.5% from 34.6% a day earlier, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
At 8:42 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 115 points, or 0.32%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 21 points, or 0.46%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 94.5 points, or 0.59%.
Among single stocks, General Motors rose 8.6% before the bell as the automaker said it will buy back $10 billion in shares and boost its dividend by 33%.
Dollar Tree slid 1.3% after the retailer trimmed its full-year sales forecast.
CrowdStrike Holdings added 2.8% as the firm forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Street estimates, driven by resilient demand for its cybersecurity offerings.
NetApp jumped 10.5% after the cloud-based data management platform raised its annual profit forecast on resilient demand for its cloud-based data solutions.
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