US pre-open: stocks mixed as Q2 earnings season unofficially gets under way
Wall Street futures were mixed ahead of the bell on Tuesday as investors prepped for the beginning of second-quarter earnings season, with results from two major US banks up first.
As of 1210 BST, Dow Jones futures were down 0.12%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures were up 0.01% and 0.35%, respectively.
The Dow closed 126.02 points higher on Tuesday, pushing major indices to fresh record highs.
Tuesday's primary focus will be earnings from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs that will unofficially kick off the second-quarter earnings season.
JPMorgan posted both profits and revenues that came in ahead of analysts' expectations, with earnings surged year-on-year to $3.78 per share on revenues of $31.4bn, while Goldman Sachs' quarterly report card was still on the way at the time of writing.
Also in the corporate space, PepsiCo Q2 earnings were considerably ahead of expectations in terms of both earnings and revenue, leading the drink and snack maker to raise its full-year forecast, and Boeing revealed that it had halted production of its 787 Dreamliners as a result of a Federal Aviation Administration evaluation of how the company inspects its planes leading to the detection of a new flaw in the craft.
On the macro front, June inflation data will be released at 1330 BST, while the Federal government's budget statement for last month will follow at 1900 BST.
Swissquote's Ipek Ozkardeskaya said: "Today, investors will be closely watching the US inflation data. Inflation in the US shot up to 5% in May, as a result of more than 50% rise in energy prices, the jump in second-hand car prices, and of course, the Federal Reserve's (Fed) ultra-supportive monetary policy. And for the Fed policy to stay this supportive, we need to see at least some slowdown in the inflation figures at today's print.
"The headline inflation in the US is expected to have eased to 4.9% in June, from 5% printed a month earlier. Although the figure will be relatively strong compared with the Fed’s 2% inflation goal, any softening will likely bring the 'transitory inflation' rhetoric back on table and should further pressure the yields to the south, and the equity prices to the north. A print above the 5% mark, however, will likely revive the worries that inflation may not fade as rapidly as the US policymakers first thought, and should, in theory, boost appetite in stocks of businesses which could more easily pass the rising material costs on to their clients."