US pre-open: Stocks seen muted ahead of impeachment proceedings

US stocks were set for a muted open on Wednesday as investors eyed impeachment proceedings and continued to mull over Sino-US trade developments.

At 1030 GMT, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were all up 0.1%.

House Democrats are due to vote later in the day on two articles of impeachment against US President Donald Trump, although the move is unlikely to result in his removal from office.

Joshua Mahony, senior market analyst at IG, said: "The US focus on impeachment proceedings does raise questions over exactly what the state of this trade deal would be if Trump is removed from office. While many believe such an eventuality is unlikely, the surge of support for such a move is certainly grabbing the attention of markets that has thus far largely ignored proceedings."

Rabobank analysts said: "There looks almost certain to be no political pay-off for markets to worry about from this epic impeachment saga - except perhaps to enthuse Republican voters and make Trump 2020 more, not less, likely; and in McConnell’s eyes, to introduce the concept of destabilising, spurious impeachments into the US political canon (though one might argue they were already there)."

The US and China announced last week that they had agreed a "phase one" trade deal. The US has committed to halving its 15% tariff on around $120bn of imports from China, which will increase its US imports by $200bn over the next two years. The US Trade Secretary also said that China will commit to importing at least $40bn of US agricultural products.

Oanda analyst Craig Erlam said: "The final few pieces of tape are still being applied and who knows how long that will take. This deal was done in October, remember. Still, no new tariffs makes for a very merry Christmas for US consumers and Chinese manufacturers."

On the corporate front, General Mills, Toro and Paychex were slated to report earnings before the opening bell, while Micro Technology and ABM Industries were also set to release quarterly numbers.