US pre-open: Stocks set for muted start

US futures pointed to a broadly flat open on Wall Street as investors continued to eye Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s speech at the end of the week, with existing home sales data on tap.

At 1130 BST, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were flat, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were up just 0.1%.

At the same time, oil prices were under pressure again after data from the American Petroleum Institute showed an increase of 4.5m barrels last week. West Texas Intermediate was down 1.6% to $47.32 a barrel while Brent crude was 1% weaker at $49.45.

The main focus this week will be Yellen’s speech at Jackson Hole on Friday, as investors look for clues on the timing of a rate hike.

Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said the meeting and the seasonally quiet trade may explain why there have been no big moves in the US so far this week.

“Jackson Hole has on numerous occasions in the past been used to hint heavily at upcoming policy moves and with a rate hike possibly being on the horizon, the question is whether Yellen will utilise this platform once again," he said.

“While the message coming from Fed officials has been quite mixed and left the markets with little idea of what the Fed is planning –it initially intended to raise rates four times this year and so far it hasn’t done so once – the message from Stanley Fischer and William Dudley, both permanent voters on the FOMC, last week were quite hawkish. Should Yellen deliver an equally hawkish warning on Friday then I expect markets to respond accordingly, with December likely becoming the most likely meeting but September being more priced in than it currently is.”

In corporate news, Pfizer was likely to be in focus after agreeing to buy AstraZeneca’s antibiotics division.

La-Z-Boy was also likely to be watched after its first-quarter earnings and sales late on Tuesday missed analysts’ expectations.

Intuit Inc shares were down nearly 5% in pre-market trade after the software company’s revenue forecast left investors disappointed late on Tuesday, despite better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.

On the macroeconomic calendar, eyes will be on US existing home sales data at 1500 BST.

Societe Generale said it expects sales essentially flattened out at 5.55m units on an annualised basis in July. “This is based on trends in the pending home sales index which leads re-sales by a month or two, and was little changed in June,” the bank said.