Markets Wait for Fed's FOMC Meeting

It’s St Patrick’s Day, sure’n begorrah, and pre-market futures are fighting back into the green, where they closed Monday. Tensions regarding the Middle East in general and the Strait of Hormuz in particular appear to have loosened, but it’s probably best to treat this as an ongoing situation worth checking back in with. As of right now, the Dow is +88 points, +0.19%, the S&P 500 is +8 points, +0.12%, the Nasdaq +13, +0.05%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 +2 points, +0.1%.

We’re light on both earnings reports and economic releases this morning, with Pending Home Sales for February hitting the tape a half-hour after the open. Expectations are for another slight slip, -1.0%, following -0.8% the prior month, and this speaks to the ongoing morass in the domestic housing industry — particularly on the non-luxury side. For earnings, while we did see Tencent Music Entertainment TME meet earnings and see its share price jump ahead of the open, the main reportage happens after the close today.

Once we’ve closed the regular trading session, lululemon LULU, DocuSign DOCU and nuclear reactor designer Oklo OKLO report quarterly results. While LULU expects negative earnings growth, -22.3%, DOCU is expected to gain +10.5% on its bottom line. As for OKLO, it has yet to be publicly traded a full year yet, though earnings are expected to come in light for the quarter.

As we mentioned yesterday, Wednesday is the biggest day for both earnings and economic prints: Macy’s M reports ahead of the open and Micron MU follows the close, while the Producer Price Index (PPI) — the wholesale print on monthly inflation — brings us February numbers. Year-over-year PPI has been dancing above and just below +3%, clearly higher than Fed Chair Powell’s optimal +2% inflation; we’ll see if anything changes, while keeping clear that we are currently embarking on new global economic realities these numbers won’t show.

Speaking of Fed Chair Powell, his penultimate Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting begins today and concludes tomorrow — with a near-100% certainty that interest rates will not change from the +3.50-3.75% range they’ve been in since December. It will be the first Fed meeting since the U.S. and Israel began its latest bombing campaign on Iran, so Powell’s comments may be worth hearing, especially as he only has a two-month future as head of the Fed.

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Macy's, Inc. (M): Free Stock Analysis Report

Micron Technology, Inc. (MU): Free Stock Analysis Report

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