US pre-open: Futures trade higher ahead of August CPI reading
Wall Street futures were in the green prior to the opening bell on Tuesday as market participants await the release of last month's all-important consumer price index.
As of 1230 BST, Dow Jones futures were up 0.63%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures had the indices opening 0.65% and 0.62% firmer, respectively.
The Dow closed 229.63 points higher on Monday, extending gains recorded in the previous session.
Tuesday's primary focus will be August's consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with economists expecting to see the rate of inflation in the US dip from 8.5% to 8.1%, while the core inflation rate was seen increasing to 6.1% from 5.9%.
Swissquote's Ipek Ozkardeskaya said: "A sufficiently soft, and ideally softer-than-expected inflation read today should keep the Fed hawks at bay, and give further support to the bullish action in equity markets, whereas a figure above expectations, or worse, a figure above last month's read could snap the latest rally and send the stocks tumbling."
Talk of a rail strike in the US was also drawing an amount of investor attention ahead of the open, with fears that any walkout could put further pressure on already strained supply chains in the coming day, and cost the economy roughly $2.0bn every day, disrupt the retail industry, and weigh on retail giants and logistics companies' profit expectations.
Elsewhere on the macro front, the National Federation of Independent Business' small business optimism index increased for a second month In August, rising to 91.8 from 89.9 in July, with falling energy prices offering some relief. The percentage of business owners anticipating improved business conditions over the next six months increased 10 points to -42%.
Still to come, the White House's monthly budget statement for August will be published at 1900 BST.
No major corporate earnings were slated for release on Tuesday.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com