US pre-open: Stocks seen touch lower as focus shifts to Yellen

US futures pointed to a slightly lower open on Wall Street as investors looked to a speech from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen for further clues on the central bank’s next policy move.

At 1100 BST, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were all down 0.2%.

At the same time, oil prices were in the red. West Texas Intermediate was down 1.5% to $38.79 a barrel while Brent crude was off 1.8% at $39.55.

“Trading decisions made by investors will be very much confined by the upcoming US nonfarm payrolls data, which is due on Friday. But, before that, we have a speech by the president of the Federal Reserve committee later on today” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade.

He said that given the bullish comments from Fed officials last week, which were very much at odds with what Yellen had said before that, investors will be paying particularly close attention to her later on to gauge her stance.

“If her speech confirms the dovish stance today and the US NFP also verifies that the employment component with respect to wage growth is not robust, then the expectations of another rate in the second quarter of this year could be quelled,” said Aslam.

“If she reverberates what we heard last week and shares the same feeling as her colleagues due to the improvement in the manufacturing and employment data, then it could give a little boost for the dollar. Thus, the possibilities of an April meeting being a live one could increase further.”

Societe Generale strategist Kit Juckes, however, seemed to think Yellen’s speech would provide little in the way of clues to investors.

“The danger is that she is very balanced/neutral. It’s hard to see why she would seek to signal the possibility of an imminent rate hike after recent data, but she will clearly want to support the market in pricing in hikes this year.

“Net result, she won’t be much help and we may wait for Friday for economic clues.”

Yellen’s speech at the Economic Club of New York Luncheon is due at 1620 GMT. Before that, S&P Case-Shiller house prices are at 1300 BST, while US consumer confidence is at 1400 BST.

In economic news, Yahoo shares edged higher in pre-market trade after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was giving potential suitors two weeks to submit preliminary bids for its core web business and Asian assets.

JetBlue Airways and Alaska Air Group were also in the black amid expectations they will make takeover offers for Virgin America by the end of the week.

Apple was likely to be in focus after the FBI said it had successfully hacked the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino gunmen.

On the downside, SunEdison shares tumbled on news the renewable energy group was being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.