US pre-open: Futures pointing slightly lower ahead of services PMI, Fed minutes

Futures are pointing to a dip in stocks at the opening bell on Wall Street as investors wait for the release of a reading on a key survey on retail sector activity for the month of June.

Also due out are the minutes of the Federal Reserve's 14-15 June policy meeting.

Combined, the two releases may yield further information on the state of household spending and help analysts refine their call for the central bank's next interest rate hike on 26-27 July.

Will the Fed hike by 50 or by 75 basis points at that meeting? That is the immediate question, alongside how sensitive the Fed will be to signs of tigher financial conditions dragging on the economy, said economists at Barclays Research.

Wall Street reversed early selling during the previous session, helped by the ongoing slide in government bond yields, although the 2-10 year interest rate curve remained slightly inverted.

Worth noting, Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda, credited the decline in yields for the rise in the Nasdaq indices on Tuesday, given technology stocks' sensitivity to so-called risk-free interest rates.

Also on the economic calendar for Wednesday is the Department of Labor's JOLTS job markets survey for May, at 1500 BST, with investors likely to focus on the 'quits' rate, an indicator of workers' confidence in their ability of finding other jobs.

The Institute for Supply Management's services sector Purchasing Managers' Index for June will be published alongside at the same time (consensus: 54.3).

The Fed meeting minutes were due out at 1900 BST.

At last count, the yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note yield was basically flat at 2.81%, the euro off by 0.32% to 1.0232 dollars and Brent up by $1.38 to $1.0415 a barrel.