March 19 – U.S. stock index futures gained some ground on Wednesday ahead of the Federal Reserve’s widely anticipated monetary policy decision.
The central bank is expected to leave its benchmark overnight interest rate unchanged in the 4.25%-4.50% range, when it releases its policy statement at 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT).
Traders see about 60 basis points of easing from the Fed this year, with the first cut seen in July, according to LSEG data.
Focus will be on new economic projections from policymakers that will give an idea of how they feel U.S. President Donald Trump‘s trade and immigration policies will affect economic growth, inflation and unemployment.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak later in the day.
“Market pricing suggests some dovish tweak in the Fed communication today, but we think Powell will want to see hard evidence of a slowdown and will remain cautious for now,” ING analysts said.
U.S. stocks have come under severe selling pressure in the recent weeks after a raft of economic indicators signaled a cooling of the U.S. economy amid trade policy uncertainties.
The benchmark S&P 500 index .SPX confirmed last week it was in correction following a 10% drop from its recent high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq .IXIC also confirmed a correction on March 6, while the blue-chip Dow is about 2% away from the correction threshold.
By 06:02 a.m. ET, U.S. S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 were up 16.25 points, or 0.29%, with 91,934 contracts changing hands, Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 were up 73.75 points, or 0.38%, and Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were up 65 points, or 0.16%.
U.S. stocks on Tuesday snapped their brief two-session gaining streak.
The allure of safe havens continued, with gold prices hitting a record high again on Wednesday.
Growth stocks edged higher in premarket trade, with Nvidia NVDA.O rising 1.2%. CEO Jensen Huang said the company was well placed to navigate a shift in the artificial intelligence industry, speaking at the AI chip firm’s annual software developer conference on Tuesday.
Tesla TSLA.O gained 2.7%, while Amazon.com AMZN.O and Microsoft MSFT.O rose 0.2% each.
(Reporting by Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
