
Fed Signals Higher Inflation, Uncertainty
U.S. stock futures are lower in premarket trading as oil prices stabilized and inflation fears took hold on Wall Street. Wall Street is coming off a broad-based sell-off on Wednesday with the 30-stock Dow Index falling 1.64%, to a new closing low for the year.
The sell-off comes after a surprisingly hot producer prices report, and greater inflation expectations from the Federal Reserve. The Fed left rates unchanged on Wednesday at 3.5%-3.75% and signaled uncertainty due to the conflict in the Middle East.
On the corporate front, Micron (MU) shares are down 6% despite another blow-out quarterly earnings report. The memory chipmaker nearly tripled revenue from a year ago and gave a bright outlook for the current quarter and full year. Investor focus will be on headline risks and economic data along with the fallout from the Fed.
Snapshot (as of 7 AM ET)
- Oil (/CL) – Oil Futures are up 1.4% above $96.50 as strikes on key energy infrastructure in the Middle East exacerbated fears of a global supply crunch. Qatar said Wednesday that Iranian missile strikes had damaged a key liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility. The escalating strikes on Middle East energy infrastructure risk deepening the supply shock triggered by the Iran war.
- Gold (/GC) – Gold prices are down almost 5% near $4660, nearly 6-week lows, as fears about the Iran war and inflation gripped global markets. Rising yields, a firming U.S. Dollar and lack of movement of physical gold have also created headwinds for the precious metal. Silver Futures (/SI) are down around 9% to one-month lows.
- Bitcoin (/BTC) – The Crypto Future is down about 1.5% near 70,000 in premarket trading.
- VIX – The CBOE Volatility Index was up 12% on Wednesday and settled at 25.09 as stocks sold off.
- U.S. Dollar (/DX) – The dollar is flat at 99.9.
Biggest Premarket Movers (as of 7 AM ET - Mark % Change)
- Align Technology (ALGN): +5.56%
- CF Industries (CF): +4.16%
- LyondellBasell (LYB): +1.94%
- Mosaic (MOS): +1.33%
- Diamondback Energy (FANG): +1.28%
- Newmont (NEM): -7.74%
- Micron (MU): -6.71%
- SanDisk (SNDK): -6.41%
- Freeport-McMoRan (FCX): -4.35%
- Accenture (ACN): -3.67%
Economic Data
- 8:30 AM ET: Jobless Claims, Philly Fed Mfg. Index
- 10:00 AM ET: New Home Sales (Delayed), Business/Wholesale Inventories
- 10:30 AM ET: Natural Gas Inventories
Notable Earnings
- Premarket: ACN, BABA, CAL, CSIQ, DRI, LE, SIG, TITN
- Postmarket: FDX, PL
- Premarket Tomorrow: XPEV
- Postmarket Tomorrow: None
Upgrades/Downgrades
- Morgan Stanley upgrades Carnival (CCL) to Overweight from Equal Weight
- BNP Paribas upgrades MasterCard (MA) to Outperform from Neutral
- William Blair upgrades Five Below (FIVE) to Outperform from Market Perform
- Summit Insights downgrades Micron (MU) to Hold from Buy
- Evercore ISI downgrades CSX (CSX) to In-Line from Outperform

