US pre-open: Futures lower as traders await PPI reading

Wall Street futures were in the red ahead of the bell on Thursday as market participants prepared for the release of yet another key inflation report.

As of 1225 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.31%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.32% and 0.25% weaker, respectively.

The Dow closed 422.16 points lower on Wednesday after March's hotter-than-expected consumer price index fuelled worries that the Federal Reserve may now implement fewer rate cuts than initially thought. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 18 basis points on the news, hitting its highest level since November 2023.

Trade Nation's David Morrison said: "Investors are once again recalibrating the probabilities of rate cuts this year. Having initially forecast six 25 basis point rate cuts in 2024, investors had recently reduced their forecasts to a maximum of three cuts. But now two seems more likely, if that. And we may have to wait until September to get the first, rather than June as previously forecast."

With the CPI somewhat in the rearview, Thursday's primary focus will be March's producer price index, due out at 1330 BST, with economists expecting to see wholesale prices grow by 0.3% in March, or 0.2% when excluding volatile food and energy prices.

Elsewhere on the macro front, weekly jobless claims data will be released at 1330 BST, while Federal Reserve bankers John Williams, Susan Collins, and Raphael Bostic will all deliver speeches throughout the course of the day.

In the corporate space, investors will be looking ahead to tomorrow for the first batch of big-name bank earnings, with JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup all set to report on Friday.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com